/ 

SKF HES OF THE MISSIONS 



AMERICAN BOARD. 



BY' 

S. C. BARTLETT, D. D., 

PROFESSOR IN CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD, 
33 Pemberton Square. 

1872. 



sf.£* 



^ 3 
h 6 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



The great favor with which these Sketches of the 
Missions of the American Board were received by the 
Christian public, on their first appearance in the " Mis- 
sionary Papers," edited by Rev. S. J. Humphrey, 
District Secretary of the Board at Chicago, has led to 
their republication in the present form. The most in- 
teresting points in the history of the different missions 
are presented in the peculiarly fresh and graphic style 
of one whose head and heart are alike enlisted in the 
work. 

N. G. C. 

Missionary House, 

Boston, April 19, 1872, 

ii 

* AN 2» W08 



PREFACE 



This volume contains " Sketches," not histories, of 
missions. They were written to accompany certain 
missionary papers, issued at intervals in the North- 
western Agency of the American Board. 

Their purpose was to awaken intelligent interest 
in the Foreign Mission enterprise in a region where 
that cause seemed to be undervalued, and to revive 
a knowledge of its earlier struggles and victories. 

The endeavor of the writer has been to sketch 
the course of events in such aspects, and within such 
compass, as to secure a hearing, and at the same 
time give an intelligent apprehension of the case. 

In traversing so wide a range, involving so many 
collateral topics, in the use of fragmentary and some- 
times divergent accounts, there must be errors both 
of fact and opinion. 

The work here attempted could undoubtedly be 
done much better upon the same plan; but the 
writer's engagements would not "suffer him to do 
more. 

iii 



IV PREFACE. 

Articles written, as these have been, at intervals, 
and, as it were, by snatches, necessarily labor under 
some disadvantages, when collected, both of style 
and method. Narratives written for a newspaper 
also invite a freedom of expression which might not 
be expected elsewhere. To obviate all defects grow- 
ing out of these circumstances, would require a 
degree of reconstruction which it was quite imprac- 
ticable to attempt. In some instances even the sta- 
tistical statements — contin'ually changing — are so 
related to the narrative, that it was thought best to 
leave them, with a mention of the date, and to refer 
the reader to a full tabular record at the end of the 
volume, which should always be consulted for the 
latest statistics. 

For the opinions and views herein expressed the 
writer only must be held responsible. He is pain- 
fully sensible of his failure suitably to do honor to 
the scores and hundreds of apostolic men and de- 
voted women, the fruit of whose labors is here 
recorded. He regrets the necessary omission of all 
specific allusion to the great majority of them. Many 
of those whose names even are not cited, deserve 
mention as truly and as fully as any that are speci- 
fied. In narratives so brief, the mention of a name 
is only incidental to the main facts presented. And 
it is very likely, too, that in some instances the ac- 
count of facts here given is as imperfect as is, fre- 



PREFACE. V 

quently, the narrative of a battle. Pity that warriors 
could not be writers. Would that we had more 
missionary biographies, and more narratives by the 
missionaries. 

Imperfect as they are, these Sketches are now col- 
lected in obedience to the judgment and desire of 
others, rather than the writer's own wishes. It is 
thought that they may help the cause, and to the 
cause they are offered. 

Not a few Foreign Missionaries have been the 
writer's pupils. Others were his fellow-students. 
Should this volume fall under the eye of these, or 
of any others of the noble band, he entreats them 
to look upon it as at least a token of the deep and 
unflagging interest with which he has followed them 
and their great enterprise, through all his mature 
year's, and of the strong bond of active sympathy 
and cooperation that binds, and he trusts will bind, 
this Theological Institution to the Foreign Mission- 
ary work till the Gospel shall have been " preached 
to all nations." 



Chicago Theological Seminary, 
March, 1872. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Origin of the American Board. . . 1 

H. Missions in India. ...... 15 

III. Missions in the Sandwich Islands, Micronesia, 

and Marquesas. ...... 37 

IV. Missions in Turkey. . . . . .71 

V. The Mission in Stria 99 

VI. Missions in China 115 

VII. The Mission to Persia 137 

VIII. Missions in Africa 161 

IX. Missions among the North American Indians. 175 
X. Missions among the North American Indians, 

Continued. — The Dakotas. . . . 197 

APPENDIX. 

Statistics of the Missions of the A. B. C. F. M. . 218 
Statistics of Missions recently transferred to the 

Presbyterian Board of Missions. . . . 220 

Statistics of the Sandwich Islands Churches. . 222 

Missionaries of the Board. ..... 223 

Foreign Missionary Statistics of the Protestant 

Churches throughout the World. . . . 232 

vi 



SKETCHES 



OP THE 



MISSIONS OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. 

In the year of our Lord 1811, the Protestant churches 
of America had not one missionary laborer, male or fe- 
male, among the millions of heathen in foreign lands : to- 
day they have, besides native helpers, nearly a thousand. 

And yet the missionary spirit of the past fifty years is 
not a new thing in these churches. The same zeal once 
burned bright in the hearts of our fathers, the old Puri- 
tan colonists ; and we have but experienced a revival. 
The heart of the fathers has been turned to the children, 
and of the children to the fathers. " The first settlers 
of New England were the first Englishmen who devised 
and executed a mission to the heathen." Houored be 
their memory ! We come of a missionary stock. No 
man can rightly apprehend the new dispensation of mis- 
sions without some knowledge of the old ; for the holy 
zeal of Mills and of Judson stands interlocked with the 
labors of Brainerd and of Eliot. 

Have you ever seen the old State Seal of Massachu- 
1 



2 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

setts? It still bears the figure of an Indian and of a star. 
In early times it bore also for its motto, the Macedonian 
cry, " Come over and help us ; " and the star on which 
the Indian gazes there, is the star of Bethlehem. 

That quaint device was both a history and a prophecy. 
It records a desire and a purpose for the salvation of the 
Indian tribes, which not only accompanied, but preceded 
the coming of the first band of believers to the shores of 
New England. Governor Bradford tells us how the men 
of Plymouth discussed this very 'subject, while in Hol- 
land ; and among the " weighty and solid reasons" for 
the voyage, he affirms there was "lastly — and which 
was not the least — a great hope and inward zeal they 
had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make 
some way thereunto, for the propagating and advancing the 
Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ in those remote parts 
of the world ; yea, though they should be but as stejjpi?ig- 
stones unto others for the performing of so great a work." 
Prophetic words were these. Just so it was with the 
second or Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Cradock, the 
Governor of the Company in England, iu 1628, writes to 
John Endicott, the Governor of Salem, " not to be un- 
mindful of the main end of our plantation, by endeavor- 
ing to briug the Indians to the knowledge of the gospel ; " 
and the Company's first general letter of instructions af- 
firms, " that the propagating of the gospel is the thing 
we do profess, above all, to be our aim in settling this 
plantation." The royal charter declares the same "prin- 
cipal end of the plantation" — " to win and incite the 
natives of that country to the only true God and Sa- 
viour of mankind." These facts ought never to be for- 
gotten. 

Their practice was true to their profession. A series 



ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. 6 

of historic pictures would well set forth the history of 
missions from that time to this. 

The first scene should be in September, 1622. A little 
exploring ship lies off the coast of Chatham, on Cape Cod. 
In it there is a dying Indian, and he is asking a white man 
by his side to pray for him, " that he might go to the 
Englishman's God in heaven." The little ship is the 
Swan ; the dying Indian is the faithful Squanto ; the 
praying white man is William Bradford, the Governor 
of Plymouth. And around the scene might well be writ- 
ten the memorable worlds that came from John Robin- 
son, in Holland, a few months later, when he learned of 
the first collision between Standish and the savages — 
" O that you had converted some before you killed any ! " 

The next painting should bring us down to the year 
1646. In the town of Newton, the minister of Roxbury 
is preaching, in the barbarous tongue of the natives, to a 
solemn assembly ; and at the close, an aged Indian rises, 
and asks with tears, whether it is not too late for such 
an old man as he to repent and seek after God. The 
Indians are thanking the preacher for his visit, and for 
the wonderful things they have heard. And again, I see 
this same John Eliot — for he it is — organizing a little 
church at Natick, and at several other places, and travel- 
ing about among the Indians, from Cape Cod to Worces- 
ter County. He fears no threats from the opposing 
sachems, but tells them, " God is with me, so that I 
neither fear you nor all the sachems of the country." 
With a robust body and a dauntless heart, he cheerfully 
encounters all manner of hardships. " I have not been 
dry, night or day, from the third day of the week unto 
the sixth, but so traveled ; but at night pull off my boots 
and wring my stockings, then on with them again, and 



4 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

so continue. But God steps in and helps." Once, even, 
he preached the gospel to Philip of Mount Hope, though 
the fierce savage rejected it with scorn. And that In- 
dian Bible, printed two hundred and nine years ago, 
long in advance of all other Bibles on this continent, — 
though there is no living eye nor ear that takes in its 
meaning, — once found a call for two editions of fifteen 
hundred and two thousand copies. Thomas Mayhew is 
already at work on Martha's Vineyard, followed in the 
labor by his descendants to the fifth generation. Not far 
from this time, on Herring River, too, Thomas Tupper is 
founding his Indian church, to be supplied with a succes- 
sion of pastors that bear his name ; and Richard Bourne, 
at Marshpee, is beginning the labors in which his son, his 
grandson, and his great-grandson, all are to bear their 
part. Thomas Fitch meanwhile preaches the gospel to the 
Mohegan tribe around Norwich, and Abraham Pierson 
to the natives on Long Island and in various parts of 
Connecticut. The names of Cotton, Rawson, Gookin, 
Thatcher, also, are identified with these early missions. 
And thus, in 1675, when King Philip's war broke in with 
its wretched havoc of all these good works, there might 
be seen, on a Sabbath day, some twenty-four regular con- 
gregations of " praying Indians," and about the same 
number of Indian preachers. Twenty years afterwards 
there were thirty Indian churches in Massachusetts, be- 
sides some fourteen hundred praying Indians in Plymouth 
Colony. Their singing, says Cotton Mather, " is most 
ravishing." 

The narratives of these labors and conversions, pub- 
lished from time to time, awakened intense interest in 
the mother country, and called out collections from the 
churches of England. About this time Edward Wins- 



ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. O 

low visits England, and, largely through his influence, the 
same Puritan Parliament that had just brought Charles 
the First to the block, incorporates the " Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel in New England." It was the 
mother of the organized missionary societies. Even the 
celebrated Moravian missions were not begun till 1732. 

Pass down a hundred years from the beginning of 
Eliot's labors, and look again. It is the year 1743. In 
Rhode Island, under the labors of this society's agent, 
you may see the tokens of a powerful awakening among 
the Indians. They are abandoning their dances and 
drunken revels, and crowding the places of worship. At 
Westerly and Charlestown ninety of them join the church 
in a twelvemonth, and the whole community are nominal- 
ly Christians, while, a few years later, converts are reck- 
oned among all the tribes of that region — Narragansetts, 
Pequots, Neanticks, Mohegans, Montauks, and Stoning- 
tons. You may see Mr. Horton, on Long Island, in the 
course of three years, baptizing thirty-five of the natives, 
and their children with them ; and John Sergeant prose- 
cuting his mission at Stockbridge, Mass., and preparing 
the place where President Edwards will soon preach the 
gospel to the Indians, and write his Treatise on the Will. 
Near Sharon, Connecticut, the Indians may be seen com- 
ing from a region twenty-five miles around, to hear Chris- 
tian Henry Eauch tell them of " God who became man 
and loved the Indians so much that he gave his life to 
save them." This very year, 1743, Eleazer Wheelock 
receives Samson Occum into his family in Lebanon, Con- 
necticut—the germ of the Indian Charity School, and 
afterwards of Dartmouth College ; and David Brainerd 
begins his work at New Lebanon, New York, soon to be 
followed by that glorious series of spiritual triumphs 



6 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

among the Indians of New Jersey. And his own ac- 
count of his blessed labors, and Edwards's narrative of his 
short but glorious life, passed over into England, to rouse 
the Christian feeling of the mother country, and to help 
mold the character of Carey, and his coadjutors, for 
their missionary enterprise. War again breaks the elec- 
tric chain. The American Revolution, with its long train 
of excitements and distractions, extending both before and 
after, interrupts and almost suspends these labors of Chris- 
tian love. But the good seed had taken root beyond the 
ocean. Before Brainerd's death, a body of Scotch minis- 
ters had called for a concert of prayer for the'world's con- 
version ; and Brainerd's dying charge to his Indian church 
enjoined upon them to observe that concert of prayer. 
Our Revolution was followed by the Godless French 
Revolution — or convulsion ; and in the midst of the 
alarm it occasioned, there was kept up united supplica- 
tion of Christians on both sides of the Atlantic, for the 
outpouring of God's Spirit, the overthrow of his enemies, 
and the extension of his Church to the ends of the earth. 
Towards the close of the century, several British societies 
had begun their labors in Africa, the East Indies, and 
the Islands of the Pacific. 

In this country, God was about interposing to re-unite 
the chain, and greatly to enlarge its circuit. To heal 
the desolations of war, and cover the ravages of politics, 
towards the beginning of the present century, extensive 
and powerful revivals were preparing the way for the 
revival, too, of missions to the heathen. Indeed, in the 
very year when the American Constitution was adopted 
(1787), the legislature of Massachusetts had incorporated 
a Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians 
and others in North America ; and a little later, the 



ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. 7 

Presbyterian Assembly orders collections for a mission- 
ary fund. But as revivals begin, the indications grow 
stronger and wider. In 1797 is formed the Northern Mis- 
sionary Society of New York ; in 1798, the Connecticut 
Missionary Society; in 1799, the Massachusetts Mis- 
sionary Society, looking primarily, though not exclusive- 
ly, to the Indians. The magnetic influence spreads. 
Next year it stirs itself in the Connecticut Evangelical 
Magazine, and three years later, in the Massachusetts 
Missionary Magazine, and the Baptist Magazine, fol- 
lowed, in two years more, by the Panoplist — all plead- 
ing the cause of missions. John Norris, of Salem, in 
1808, gives ten thousand dollars for a Theological Semi- 
nary, u because we must raise up ministers if we would 
have missionaries." Narratives of eastern missions come 
over from England. Intelligence and interest are dif- 
fused ; sermons are preached, and prayers are offered ; 
but as yet there are no missionaries in foreign lands. 
Yet God is providing for the missionaries as soon as 
ever the church should be wakened up to send them. 
He had arranged it before any of these periodicals were 
started, or sermons preached, or societies formed. 

Let us go back and look in upon the little town of Tor- 
ringford, Connecticut, in the year 1783. Here is a Chris- 
tian mother naming her son " Samuel." From his early 
childhood she talks to him of Eliot and Brainerd. Once 
he hears her say to another person, "I have consecrated 
this child to the service of God as a missionary." He 
never forgot those words. The first clear indication of 
his piety, to his father's mind, was his remark that " he 
could conceive no course of life so pleasant as to go 
and give the gospel to the heathen." He longs to go to 
Africa. At length he broaches the subject to his parents, 

B 



8 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

but it is now too much for his mother's fortitude. " I 
can not bear to part with you, my son." He tells her 
what he heard her say of him years ago ; and she weeps, 
but never again objects. And now Samuel J. Mills 
enters Williams College. As he studies the geography 
of Asia, he broods over its moral darkness, and meditates 
a mission to that benighted continent. Similar thoughts 
of missionary labors are already stirring in the minds of 
James Richards and Gordon Hall, and — far away from 
them all — of Asahel Nettleton. 

Look upon another scene. There is ,a hay-stack in a 
meadow not far from Williams College, and by the side 
of it a little group of students. An impending thunder- 
storm has driven them from their stated place of prayer 
in the neighboring grove to this place of shelter. And 
here, says one who was present, " Mills proposed to send 
the gospel to that dark and heathen land [of Asia], and 
said we could do it if we would." The subject was dis- 
cussed. The storm was passing off. And now said 
Mills, " Let us make it a subject of prayer under this 
hay-stack, while the dark clouds are going and the clear 
sky is coming." And so they prayed. Thenceforth they 
deliberated — it was in the north-west lower room of the 
east college — till on the 8th of September, 1808, they 
formed that strangest of secret associations, the " Society 
of Brethren," the object of which " shall be to effect, in 
the person of its members, a mission to the heathen." 
The constitution may still be seen, signed by the names 
of Mills, Richards, Fisk, Seward, Rice — all written in 
cipher. It was the first strictly foreign missionary so- 
ciety upon this continent, and was formed in the very 
year when Rev. Sydney Smith, of England, through the 
columns of the Edinburgh Review, was pouring in his 



ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. 9 

broadsides upon the " consecrated cobblers," as he called 
the British missionaries in India. The next year, two 
of these young men might be found at Andover Seminary 
— then just opened — where Hall, Judson, Mills, and 
Nott agree to establish a mission in some foreign land. 
In the spring of that year, Dr. Worcester publicly pre- 
dicts, that, " ere long, God will give the word, and great 
will be the company of the publishers." Within a twelve- 
month of that prediction, there are now known to have 
been some twenty young men pondering this great ques- 
tion of duty. 

The time for action draws near. On the 25tli of June, 
1810, let us go with Rev. John Keep to the parlor of 
Professor Stuart, in Andover. Here is a little company 
of eight or nine brethren assembled to confer with these 
young men. There are Drs. Spring, Worcester, Snell, 
Griffin, Revs. Sanborn, Reynolds, Keep, Professor Stuart, 
and Jeremiah Evarts. Samuel Newell states the case. 
A world lies in ruin, and Christ has said, Go preach the 
gospel to every creature. That command has come home 
powerfully to their hearts, and lain there for years. The 
sense of duty is so solemn and so strong, that one of them 
has already said to the call of a most inviting church, 
" No, I must not settle in any parish of Christendom. 
God calls me to the heathen. Woe to me if I preach 
.not the gospel to the heathen." Can they have that 
privilege? One by one the ministers gave their opinions. 
To one of the brethren the project savored of " infatua- 
tion." But better counsels prevailed, and the conclusion 
is to go forward, trusting in God. The next day Dr. 
Spring and Dr. Worcester ride together in a chaise to 
the General Association at Bradford ; and between them, 
on the way, there grows up the whole conception of the 



10 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. 

American Board, with its form, its name, and the num- 
ber of its members. 

That General Association was but a little body — 
eighteen, all told. A paper was presented to them, 
bearing the names of Judson, Mills, Nott, and Newell. 
Richards and Rice did not venture to add their names, 
lest the Association should be alarmed at their number, 
and the greatness of the burden. Hall's name, also, was 
not there, although, in his zeal, he was " ready to work 
his passage to India, and then throw himself on his own 
resources, to preach the gospel to the heathen." In that 
General Association was born the American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Not altogether in 
boldness and confidence, but in questionings and solici- 
tudes, and yet prevailing faith. " The attitude of the 
meeting," says one who was there, " was about this : 
no direct opposition, a weak faith, a genial hope, rather 
leaning to a waiting posture." " Never was the value 
of an intelligent, leading influence more clearly seen," 
that influence being found in the clear heads and brave 
hearts of such men as Worcester and Spring. And yet it 
was the moving of God's Spirit, back of all men and means. 

Yea, no man was the ultimate leader. But just as 
God moved simultaneously on the hearts of Peter and 
Cornelius, at Joppa and at Cesarea, — and as he often 
prepares for some great enterprise of his by many diverse 
and distant agencies at once, — so had he now been work- 
ing silently and separately on the minds of those young 
missionaries, their wives, the Professors at Andover, the 
leading ministers, the business men, and, in some degree, 
the churches at large, till all was ripe, or ripening, for the 
formation of the American Board. Such is the method 
of God. 



ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN BOARD. 11 

The first meeting of the body that now fills the largest 
halls with its annual assemblies, occupies two or three 
churches with the attending communicants, counts its 
twenty-four thousand living converts from heathenism, 
and a much larger number now in heaven, was held the 
same year in the parlor of Dr. Porter, and consisted of 
five persons. But the work looked formidable. A fund 
of sixty thousand dollars seemed indispensable. The 
effort failed — fortunately, no doubt ; although once, at 
Salem, the noble Mrs. Norris called out Mr. Bartlet from 
the committee-room to say, " I will give thirty thousand 
dollars, if you will," — and with her dying hand, a few 
months later, she gave thirty thousand dollars each to 
Andover Seminary and the American Board. Judson, 
meanwhile, was sent to England, to negotiate for help. 
Nothing was effected there. The question was forced 
back, Will the Board send these young men? When 
that question first went round, only one member of the 
Committee ventured to say, Yes. But again God's Spirit 
led the way, and they finally determined io send them — 
yet without wives, so far as practicable, and with the 
reserved alternative of throwing a part of them, if need 
be, upon the London Missionary Society for support. 

One other transaction remains to complete the sketch. 
It is the 6th of February, 1812, aud the old Tabernacle 
Church of Salem is crowded to its utmost capacity to 
witness the solemn consecration of five young men to the 
missionary work. The funds in the treasury are not one 
quarter enough to pay the first year's expenses ; even the 
great. and good Dr. Dwight tells young Nott it is a rash 
undertaking ; but the vessels already lie at the wharves, 
which are to carry a grander destiny and a surer freight 
than Csesar and his fortunes. In the Tabernacle Church 



12 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

are gathered ministers and Christians from many miles 
around. Students from Andover Seminary and Phillips 
Academy have walked sixteen miles on that February 
day, to enjoy the occasion. Ann Hasseltine Judson, and 
Harriet Atwood Newell — the bride of a day, and the 
bride elect — are there, bearing up under many a censure 
of their " romantic " enterprise. Five of the chief minis- 
ters of New England — Woods, and Spring, and Griffin, 
and Morse, and Worcester — conduct the impressive ser- 
vices, deepening in pathos to the close. Dr. Woods pre- 
sents the glorious inducements to labor for the world's con- 
version, and bids the "dear young men "a tender fare- 
well. Dr. Morse follows with the consecrating prayer, 
and the five chief ministers of their generation lay their 
hands upon the five pioneers of all American missions 
in foreign lands. And as Dr. Spring proceeds with the 
touching charge, in which he bids them " go, with the 
tender companions of your bosoms, and lay your bodies 
by the side of Ziegenbald and Schwarz, that you may 
meet them, and Eliot, and Brainerd, and all other faith- 
ful missionaries, in the realms of light, and so be ever 
with the Lord ; " and as Worcester follows with that 
tenderest of " fellowships," beginning " God is love," and 
assuring them of the " unspeakable joy" with which the 
brethren here will read of their labors on " the banks of 
the Indus, the Ganges, or the Ava," the sound of irre- 
pressible sighing, and even, of loud weeping, is heard 
in that great congregation ; and Nettleton weeps, far 
away in New Haven, that he cannot join that blessed 
band. 

Yea, and what a memorable day was that in the annals 
of our churches ! How it stirred up New England with 
a great heart-throb of missionary feeling, and vibrated 



ORIGIN OP THE AMERICAN BOARD. 13 

across the waters. Before the vessels left the coast, 
money came flowing in from all quarters, and all the im- 
mediate necessities of the Board were met in advance. 
How many a parent consecrated his young child to the 
same good work ! and how many a youth then felt our 
Lord's command pressing on his conscience and thrilling 
through his heart ! The monthly concert of prayer for 
the world's conversion became an established institution. 
We read even of children who went away by themselves 
to pray for the missions, and named each other " Bom- 
bay," and " Ceylon." What a freight of holy influence 
for the world those vessels, the Caravan and Harmony, 
bore across the ocean ! What incalculable springs of mis- 
sionary labor for the whole church of Christ lay wrapped 
up in the heroic characters of Hall and Judson ! what 
exhaustless fountains of Christian sympathy and holy for- 
titude in the deep devotion of Harriet Atwood Newell, 
and the queenly soul of Ann Hasseltine Judson ! 

O that another such tide of missionary zeal might 
flow through the land, and especially through the young, 
growing churches of the great North-west, to enlist their 
fervent prayers, to draw out their liberal contributions, 
and to summon their sons and their daughters to the 
rescue of the dying heathen ! 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 15 



CHAPTER II. 

MISSIONS IN INDIA. 

Henry Martyn knew the Hindoos well ; and he once 
said, " If ever I see a Hindoo a real believer in Jesus, 
I shall see something more nearly approaching the resur- 
rection of a dead body than anything I have yet seen." 

But God knows how to raise the dead. And it was 
on this most hopeless race, under the most discouraging 
concurrence of circumstances, that he chose to let the 
first missionaries of the American Board try their fresh 
zeal. 

The movements of commerce and the history of pre- 
vious missionary effort naturally pointed to the swarming 
continent of Asia. It was over this benighted region 
that Mills brooded at his studies. The British Baptist 
mission near Calcutta readily suggested the particular 
field of India, and the impression was deepened by the 
ardent imagination of young Judson. His mind had, in 
1809, been so "set on fire " by a moderate sermon of 
Buchanan's, the " Star of the East," that for some days 
he was unable to attend to the studies of the class ; and 
at a later period a now forgotten book, Colonel Symes's 
" Embassy to Ava," full of glowing and overwrought 
descriptions, stirred him with a fascination for Burmah 
which he never lost. The Prudential Committee of the 
Board also looked to the Burman Empire because it was 



16 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. 

beyond the control of British authority, and therefore be- 
yond " the proper province of the British Missionary 
Society/' 

Judson did indeed find his way to Burmah, but in a 
mode how different from what he expected ! cut adrift 
from his associates, and fleeing from British authority. 
The Board established this mission, but in a place and 
with a history how diverse from their intentions I Man 
proposes, but God disposes. Bombay became the first 
missionary station. 

And that choice band of young disciples — God had 
roused their several hearts, brought them together from 
their distant homes, and united their burning zeal to 
scatter them in the opening of their labor. There was 
Mills, given to God by his mother, now strengthening 
her faltering resolution ; there was Hall, ready to work 
his passage, and throw himself on God's providence, in 
order to preach the gospel to the heathen ; there was 
Judson, ardent, bold, and strong, and Newell, humble, 
tender, and devoted ; there was Nott, with the deep 
" sense of a duty to be done," and Rice, whose earnest 
desire to join the mission the Committee " did not dare 
to reject ; " and there was the noble Ann Hasseltine, with 
a heart all alive with missionary zeal before the Lord 
brought Judson to her father's house in Bradford, and 
the young Harriet Atwood, gentle, and winning, and firm, 
mourning at the age of seventeen over the condition of 
the heathen, and at eighteen joining heart aud hand with 
Newell, to carry them the gospel. Of all this precious 
band, two only, Hall and Newell, did God permit to bear 
a permanent part in that projected mission. Mills was 
to die on mid-ocean, in the Service of Africa ; Harriet 
Newell w T as to pass away before she found a resting- 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 17 

place for the sole of her foot ; Nott was to break down 
with the first year's experience of the climate ; Mr. and 
Mrs. Judson, and Mr. Rice, were to found another great 
missionary enterprise. 

On the 19th of February, 1812, the Caravan sailed 
from Salem, with Judson, and Newell, and their wives 
on board ; and on the 20th, the Harmony, from Philadel- 
phia, with Nott, and Hall, and Rice ; the one vessel go- 
ing forth from the heart of Congregationalism, the other 
from the centre of Presbyterianism, carrying the sym- 
pathies of both denominations. They sailed through 
the midst of the embargo and non-intercourse ; and the 
note of war with England followed their track upon the 
waters. 

Their instructions pointed them to the Burman Em- 
pire, but gave them discretionary power to go elsewhere. 
The Burman Empire could be reached only through the 
British possessions, and both vessels were accordingly 
bound for Calcutta. But the British authorities in India 
at that time were resolutely opposed to Christian missions. 
The East India Company professed to believe that the 
preaching of the gospel would excite the Hindoos to re- 
bellion, and was meanwhile drawing a large revenue 
from the protection of idolatry. The Baptist mission- 
aries at Serampore had felt the power of this hostility, 
but, being British subjects, and having lon°r held the 
ground, could not be dispossessed. 

But the spirit of hostility had of late been kindled up 
anew. In the very year when Mills and Rice were 
founding their secret missionary society at Williams 
College, Rev. Sydney Smith was stirring up the British 
public, through the enginery of the Edinburgh Review, 
against the British mission in India. He opened by 



18 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

insinuating that the mutiny at Vellore was connected 
with a recent increase of the missionary force ; he con- 
tinued with ridicule of "Brother Carey's" and "Brother 
Thomas' " Journals, and closed with an elaborate argu- 
ment to show the folly of founding missions in India. He 
argues, first, from the danger of insurrection ; secondly, 
from " want of success," the effort being attended with 
difficulties which he seems to think " insuperable ; " 
thirdly, from " the exposure of the converts to great 
present misery ; " and fourthly, he declares conversion to 
be " no duty at all if it merely destroys the old religion, 
without really and effectually teaching the new one." In 
regard to the last point, he argues that making a Chris- 
tian is only destroying a Hindoo, and remarks that " after 
all that has been said of the vices of the Hindoos, we be- 
lieve that a Hindoo is more mild and sober than most 
Europeans, and as honest and chaste." Such was the tone 
of feeling he represented, and he returned next year to 
the task of " routing out " " a nest of consecrated cob- 
blers." The Baptist missionaries are " ferocious Meth- 
odists " and " impious coxcombs," and when they com- 
plain of intolerance, " a weasel might as well complain 
of intolerance when it is throttled for sucking eggs." He 
declares that the danger of losing the East India posses- 
sions " makes the argument against them conclusive, and 
shuts up the case ; " and he adds, that " our opinion of 
the missionaries and of their employers is such that we 
most firmly believe, in less than twenty years, for the 
conversion of a few degraded wretches, who would be 
neither Methodists nor Hindoos, they would infallibly 
produce the massacre of every European in India." To 
this hostile feeling towards missionaries in general was 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 19 

soon added the weight of open warfare between England 
and America. 

The Caravan reached her destination on the 17th of 
June. Scarcely had the first warm greetings of Christian 
friends been uttered, when the long series of almost apos- 
tolic trials began. Ten days brought an order from 
government, commanding the return of the missionaries 
in the Caravan. They asked leave to reside in some 
other part of India, but were forbidden to settle in any 
part of the Company's territory, or its dependencies. 
May they not go to the Isle of France? It was granted. 
And Mr. and Mrs. Newell took passage in the first ves- 
sel, leaving their comrades, for whom there was no room 
on board. Four days later arrived the Harmony ; an$ 
Hall, Nott, and Rice also were summoned before the 
police, and ordered to return in the same vessel. They 
also applied for permission to go to the Isle of France ; 
and while waiting for the opportunity, another most "try- 
ing event " befell them. Mr. and Mrs. Judson, after 
many weeks of hidden but conscientious investigation, 
changed their views, and joined the Baptists. Four weeks 
later and another shock ; Mr. Bice had followed Judson. 
" What the Lord means," wrote Hall and Nott, " by 
thus dividing us in sentiment and separating us from each 
other, we cannot tell." But we can now tell, that the 
Lord meant another great missionary enterprise with 
more than a hundred churches and many thousand con- 
verts in the Burman Empire. • 

While the brethren still waited, they gained favorable 
intelligence of Bombay, and especially of its new govern- 
or. They received a general passport to leave in the 
ship Commerce, paid their passage, and got their trunks 
aboard, when there came a peremptory order to proceed 



20 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

in one of the Company's ships to England, and their 
names were published in the list of passengers. They, 
however, used their passports, and embarked for Bom- 
bay, while the police made a show of searching the city 
for them, but did not come near the vessel. In a twelve- 
month from the time of their ordination, they reached 
Bombay, to be met there by a government order to send 
them to England. 

While the Commerce was carrying Hall and Nott to 
Bombay, another sad blow was preparing. Harriet 
Newell was dying of quick consumption at the Isle of 
France. Peacefully, and even joyfully, she passed away, 
sending messages of the tenderest love to her distant 
relatives, comforting her heart-broken husband, and ex- 
hibiting a faith serene and unclouded. " Tell them [my 
dear brothers and sisters], and also my dear mother, that 
I have never regretted leaving my native land for the 
cause of Christ." " I wish to do something for God be- 
fore I die. But ... I long to be perfectly free from 
sin. God has called me away before we have entered 
on the work of the mission, but the case of David affords 
me comfort. I have had it in my heart to do what I can 
for the heathen, and I hope God will accept me." She 
is told she can not live through the day. "O, joyful 
news ! I long to depart." And so she departed, calling, 
with faltering speech, "My dear Mr. Newell, my hus- 
band," and ending her utterance on earth with, " How 
long, O Lord, how long?" And yet God turned this 
seeming calamity into an unspeakable blessing. Mr. 
Nott, half a century later, well recounts it as one of the 
" providential and gracious aids to the establishment of the 
first foreign mission," and remembers " its influence on 
our minds in strengthening our missionary purposes." 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 21 

And not only so, but the tale of her youthful consecration, 
and ber faith and purpose, unfaltering in death, thrilled 
through the land. How many eyes have wept over the 
touching narrative, and how many hearts have throbbed 
with kindred resolutions ! " No long-protracted life could 
have so blessed the church as her early death." Look 
at one instance. The little town of Smyrna lies on the 
Chenango River in central New York. It had neither 
church, minister, nor Sabbath school ; and never had 
witnessed a revival of religion. The Memoir of Harriet 
Newell, dropped into one woman's hands in that town, 
began a revival of religion in her heart, through her 
house, through that town, and through that region. Two 
evangelical churches grew out of that revival. Men 
and women who were born again at that time, have 
carried far and wide the power of the cross and the in- 
stitutions of the gospel. On the Isle of France there still 
is seen a stranger's grave, while another solitary tomb 
may be seen on the distant Island of St. Helena. The 
one formerly contained the world's great Captain, the 
other holds the ashes of a missionary girl. But how in- 
finitely nobler that woman's life and influence ! 

From February till December, Hall and Nott, at Bom- 
bay, were kept in suspense, and even in expectation of 
defeat. The Governor of that Presidency was personal- 
ly friendly, but overborne by his official instructions. 
Twice were they directed to return in the next vessel, 
their names being once entered on the list of passengers, 
and at another time their baggage being made ready for 
the ship, and the Coolies waiting to take it. Again and 
again were they told there was no alternative, till all hope 
had passed. Hall had made his final appeal, in a letter 
of almost Pauline boldness and courtesy, in which he bade 



22 SKETCHES OE THE MISSIONS. 

the Governor "Adieu, till we meet you face to face at 
God's tribunal." The very next day they were informed 
that they might remain till further instructions were re- 
ceived ; and in due time they gained full permission to 
labor in any part of the Presidency. The Company had 
yielded to the powerful influence brought to bear, not only 
from without, but from within their own body at home. 
When, at the last moment, the Court of Directors were 
on the point of enforcing their policy, a powerful argu- 
ment from Sir Charles Grant, founded on the documents 
of the missionaries, turned the scale. India was open. 

Hall and Xott were soon joined by Newell, who, bereft 
as he was, and for a time supposing that his comrades 
had all been sent back, had yet resolved to labor alone 
in Ceylon. 

Bombay thus became the Plymouth of the American 
mission in India ; less prominent and influential than 
other stations, but noted as the door of entrance. Here 
began the struggle with Hindooism — intrenched as it 
was for ages in the terrible ramparts of caste, " inter- 
woven throughout with false science, false philosophy, 
false history, false chronology, false geography," entwined 
with every habit, feeling, and action of daily life, among 
a people prolific in every form of vice, and demoralized 
by long inheritance, till the sense of moral rectitude seemed 
extinct. The Hindoos, in some instances, charged the 
missionaries with having written the first of Romans on 
purpose to describe their case. Hindooism was aided, 
too, in its recoil, by the dealiugs of the English nation, 
who, says Sydney Smith, " have exemplified in our public 
conduct every crime of which human nature is capable." 

In itself, Bombay proved one of the most discouraging 
of all the stations of the Board. Sickness and death kept 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 23 

sweeping away its laborers, and it was years before the 
first conversion of a Hindoo. But one missionary now 
resides at Bombay, and that city is now only one of the 
seven stations of the Mahratta mission — numbering 
some forty out-stations and thirty-one churches, with a 
membership scattered through a hundred and forty vil- 
lages. The tremendous strength of Hindooism is well 
exhibited in the fact that up to the year 1856, the total 
number of conversions in the mission was but two hundred 
and eighty-five ; and the sure triumph and accelerating 
power of the gospel were equally well expressed in the 
fact that for the next six years the conversions were near- 
ly twice as many as in the previous forty, and that never 
has there been such depth of interest, and so numerous 
accessions from the higher castes, as during the last few 
years. The seed-time has been long and wearisome. The 
full harvest-time is not yet come. But Hindooism is felt 
to be undermined ; and another generation may witness, 
if the church is faithful, such revolutions in India as there 
is not now faith to believe. The details of this long strug- 
gle, could they be here recounted, would present a record 
of faithful unfaltering toil, rather than of striking inci- 
dents. When once the missionaries were admitted, the 
strong hand of British power became their protection. 
There -were many excitements, and there were sore trials 
on the part of those who often were called literally to 
abandon father and mother for Christ. But it was a rare 
thing when, in 1832, the missionaries were hooted and 
pelted with dirt in the streets of Ahmednuggur, and their 
preaching assemblies broken up. 

The field is intrinsically difficult, and this mission was 
the first experiment of the Board. Experience has led, 
within the last few years, to some modifications in 



24 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

method, from which, in connection with the large pre- 
paratory work already accomplished, greater results may 
reasonably be looked for. Less relative importance is 
attached to local printing and teaching, and far more to 
itinerant preaching and personal intercourse. Failure to 
reach the women was found to be not only a great ob- 
stacle to rapid progress, but the cause of many a relapse. 
The attempt to give an English education indiscriminate- 
ly in the schools proved to be more than unprofitable, in 
a missionary point of view, since the knowledge of Eng- 
lish often became an inducement to abandon the mis- 
sionary. Perhaps too little dependence also had been 
placed on native piety to maintain its own institutions, 
and organize aggressive movements. These things have 
begun to receive the most earnest attention. A native 
pastorate, missionary tours, self-support of the churches, 
heavier benevolent contributions, and greatly increased 
labors by women among the women, are omens of a time 
at hand when the gospel in India shall rest upon home 
forces and win its own way. 

The establishment of the Mahratta mission at Bombay 
was followed in 1816 by the mission to Ceylon, among 
a Tamil-speaking people, and in 1834 by the Madura 
mission, among the kindred Tamil people on the Con- 
tinent. A glance at these three regions of India at the 
present time would show at the Mahratta mission, cen- 
tring at Ahmednugger, some forty-seven stations and out- 
stations, including thirty-one churches with six hundred 
and twenty-nine communicants. The little band of ten 
missionaries, with their wives, is re-enforced by eleven na- 
tive pastors, three preachers, nine catechists, twenty-seven 
teachers, fourteen Bible women, and twenty-four other 
helpers. While the church members themselves are scat- 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 25 

tered through a hundred and forty villages, an organized 
system of itinerant preaching carried the gospel message, 
in 1870, to many hundred villages and sixty thousand or 
seventy thousand hearers. A theological class of six is 
coming forward, the church members are beginning to 
rally in earnest to the support of their ministry, Bible 
women are working their way into the families ; and it 
was a day to be remembered when a native Christian 
Alliance, with a hundred and fifty representative men, 
was lately held at Bombay, to impress upon each other 
the duty of independent labor to propagate the gospel in 
India. Their discussions were earnest and practical, and 
filled with " evidences of deeper feeling than was ever 
seen before in Bombay." 

But the struggle of the gospel in this region must still 
be a mighty conflict. The laborers are few, too few for 
anything like an aggressive movement. The Mahratta 
country, of which Bombay is the capital, extends three 
hundred miles on the coast and four hundred and fifty 
miles inland, with a population of eleven millions. What 
are ten missionaries to such a population? They are 
contending with ignorance so dense that but five persons 
in a hundred can read at all, and few of them intelligent- 
ly. And as to the general level of intelligence, Mr. Bis- 
sell has well said, " The Hindoo knows nothing that is 
worth knowing, and what he thinks he knows is a de- 
lusion ; " " false geography, false astronomy, false his- 
tory," held with all the tenacity of false religion. They 
contend with a caste-system so divisive, that not only the 
touch, but the very shadow, of a Mahar is pollution to a 
Brahmin ; so terribly rigid, that when Vishnupunt, now 
pastor at Ahmednuggur, became a Christian, his parents 
performed funeral rites for him. Their son was " dead." 



26 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

They contend with an idolatry dreadfully benumbing to 
the mind and the heart ; that burnt widows and swung 
on hooks as long as it was suffered ; that still worships 
the cobra di capello and the crow ; that reckons it as great 
a charity to preserve the life of an animal as of a man, 
that actually built its poorhouses in Bombay for super- 
annuated cows, cats, and dogs, but never a poorhouse 
in all India for human beings ; that replies to the preacher, 
" A full stomach is my heaven," and, " You may as well 
play on a lute to a buffalo ; " and that, even when con- 
vinced of its lost condition, could come, as did Yesoba, 
and pour its bag of rupees on the floor, with the words, 
" Sahib, take this money and give me salvation." They 
contend, too, with the adverse influence of a corrupt 
European civilization, and the counter-agency of open 
European infidelity, which has its organs even in Bom- 
bay, and which often fills with Deism the void in the 
mind of the educated Hindoo. 

But with all this they have fought and begun to con- 
quer. Yesoba, with his bag of rupees, found the Saviour, 
and lived and died in the faith. The Brahmin and the 
Mahar drink of one cup in the Christian church. Mr. 
Bruce records with wonder the change he found in the 
villages of Punchegav in 1870. Twelve years before, the 
patil, or head man, ordered the missionary out of the 
place with language of awful foulness. The second visit 
was resisted by the people themselves en masse. On a 
third visit three missionaries could not find a soul to 
listen. And when at length Harkaba, an honored teacher, 
became converted, " Beat him," " Kill him," "Bury him," 
were the fierce utterances of the enraged villagers. They 
could not fulfil their threats ; but they often made old 
Harkaba flee into the jungle to weep and pray. But now 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 27 

the same patil gave the missionary a cordial welcome, 
and offered to give the little church a piece of land for 
a chapel ; an evening lecture filled the " rest-house " full 
of people, and a hundred stood outside. This is certain- 
ly an unusual change. But there is, no doubt, a steadily 
increasing number of intelligent natives, who feel as did 
one, — a wealthy and influential man, — whom Mr. Bis- 
sel encountered in a little village on a missionary tour. 
" Sahib," said he, "your religion is true, and it will pre- 
vail in this land. If we do not embrace it, our children 
will ; or if they do not, their children will, for it is true 
and must prevail." 

A little group of eleven churches, with five hundred 
and thirty members, occupy the northern province of 
Ceylon, an island of two million inhabitants, once swept 
over by Francis Xavier with forty thousand so-called 
" converts." Here is the region where Richards, and 
Meigs, and Poor, and Scudder began their missionary 
work, and where Spaulding has faithfully toiled for more 
than half a century. The churches lie scattered among 
the rural districts and the cultivators of the soil, where 
one hundred and eighty thousand inhabitants of the Jaffna 
province are provided with five hundred and fifty heathen 
temples, holding their annual festivals, 'more impressive 
with pomp, and more insnaring with vice, to that sensual 
people, than can well be conceived. The festivals are. 
Satan's grand gala-days, and the temples around which 
they gather are Satan's stronghold. It has been mostly 
a sappers' and miners' work, and not assault and storm. 
The mission began at Batticotta and Tillipally, in the 
ruins of two Portuguese churches older than the settle- 
ment of America, and at Oodooville, in the residence of 
an ancient Franciscan friar. In about three years from 



28 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

their first occupancy began (in 1819) the series of re- 
vivals, which, in the early history of this mission, carried it 
steadily onward. They were frequent in the schools. It 
was a delightful time in 1824, when the Spirit of the Lord 
came down almost simultaneously on the schools at Til- 
lipally, Oodooville, Batticotta, Manepy, and Pandeteripo. 
There was weeping for sins. There was praying by night 
in companies and alone, " the voice of supplication heard 
in every quarter," out in the garden at Pandeteripo, each 
company or individual " praying as though all were alone," 
and coming in with the weeping inquiry, " What shall 
we do to be saved ? " Sixty-nine were thought to have 
found the Lord at that precious time. More than once 
did the schools at Batticotta, Oodooville, and Tillipally 
experience these simultaneous revivals, extending also 
to the adult population of the towns. Every year wit- 
nessed admissions to the church, rising in one year (1831) 
to sixty-one. 

The British government, though admitting the first few 
missionaries, had steadily refused, till the year 1833, to 
permit any increase of their number. And yet the little 
band had made steady progress. In a dozen years from 
their landing, they were preaching regularly to two thou- 
sand hearers on the Sabbath, they w r ere hopefully itinerat- 
ing in the villages, and they had forty-five hundred pupils 
in their ninety-three free schools, their boarding schools, 
and their seminary at Batticotta. They had gained the 
hearty co-operation of the associate justice, and other 
distinguished gentlemen of Ceylon, and raised their semi- 
nary to so high a repute that where once it was difficult 
to procure a pupil, now they selected their entering class 
of twenty-nine from two hundred applicants. In 1833, 
the government restriction having been removed, a re- 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 29 

enforcement of seven missionaries, including a physician 
and a printer, arrived. Their coming was signalized by 
the establishment, next year, of a mission (the Madura 
mission) among the kindred Tamil people on the Con- 
tinent. Converts were added in Ceylon for the next 
three years, seventy-nine, fifty-two, forty-nine. And in 
1837, with one hundred and eighty-seven free schools, 
containing seven thousand pupils, a hundred and fifty 
students in the seminary, and ninety-eight girls in the 
school at Oodooville, and a rising tide of respect and in- 
fluence all around, it seemed as though victory was or- 
ganized. 

But that year brought a stunning blow. The failure 
of the funds from America, in that time of pecuniary 
trouble, compelled the mission to disband a hundred and 
seventy schools, to dismiss more than five thousand chil- 
dren, including a part of the pupils in the two seminaries, 
to stop their building, curtail their printing, and cut down 
to the very quick. Their Sabbath congregations were 
nearly broken up, all their activities razeed, their spirits 
discouraged, and their hearts almost broken. It was a 
time of woe. The heathen exulted. Native converts 
were discouraged and led astray. Educated and half- 
educated youth were snatched away from under the 
gospel, and often worse than lost to the cause. And 
though in the following year the home churches were 
startled into furnishing the funds once more, and the 
mission kept thanksgiving over the restoration, it may 
be doubted whether it has ever recovered its lost head- 
way and its firm hold upon the country. The well-grown 
tree had been pulled up by the roots. May such havoc 
never be wrought again. 

The missionaries experienced another great shock in 



30 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

1843, when they discovered the old Hindoo leaven break- 
ing out in the Batticotta seminary in such falsehood and 
gross vices as necessitated the expulsion of sixty-one 
pupils, including the whole select class, and the dismis- 
sion of several native teachers. It was one of those fear- 
ful pieces of surgery which the constitutional rottenness 
of heathenism may sometimes require. Outwardly, the 
wound healed over in a year, and the school was more 
flourishing than before. 

No striking events have occurred within the last few 
years. Marked revivals, though not unknown, are less 
frequent than they once were. The novelty, and, per- 
haps, prestige of the gospel have long passed by, and it 
takes its place by the other religions, to contend for the 
land by a long-continued struggle. But the mission is 
organized for work, and its churches are in a transition 
state toward self-support. Some of them have reached 
that point. Some seven thousand persons belong to the 
regular Sabbath congregations. Five native pastors, 
three other native preachers, fourteen catechists, and 
seventy-eight teachers are re-enforcing the missionaries ; 
while the Batticotta " Training and Theological School," 
with its twenty students, and the female boarding schools 
at Oodooville and Oodoopitty, with seventy-six pupils, are 
raising a further supply, and twenty-six hundred children 
are gathered in the village schools, which are now aided 
and partly controlled by the British government. All the 
villages of the province are now accessible to the gospel, 
and in the year 1870, thirteen hundred of them were 
visited, and seventy thousand persons listened to the 
message. Weekly conferences, and mothers' meetings in 
the churches, a religious paper (The Morning Star), and 
the " Native Evangelical Society," a Board of Foreign 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 31 

Missions, with its " annual meetings and reports," and 
" special appeals " for an occasional debt, Crowned with 
success, its chapel-buildings, where the remaining debt 
(as at Pungerative last year) is cleared off on dedication 
day, — all begin to remind one of the mother country on 
a small scale. These things, with the increasing depen- 
dence on the native agencies, and the movement for more 
effective influence upon the women by their own sex, are 
pointing forward to a time when these home agencies 
shall take care of themselves. The missionary force is 
at present inadequate to the best economy and activity, 
and formidable foes are to be encountered. A tide of 
educated infidelity also increases the semblance of a civil- 
ized land. Thus the first two natives who received the 
degree of A. B. at Madras University, on the Continent,, 
turned against Christianity. At the same time there is 
apparently a wide-spread intellectual conviction of its- 
truth among those who refuse to submit to its claims. 
The posture of things is well indicated in the case of two 
persons with whom Mr. De Riemer had a recent inter- 
view — a young Brahmin and an old Sivite priest whom 
he brought with him. The young Brahmin boldly as- 
serts the sin and folly of idolatry, and is greatly in- 
terested in the gospel, but cannot gain strength to cut 
the cord that his wife, family, and rank bind around 
him, and come out for Christ. The old Sivite priest (or 
gooroo), for sixty years an attendant on one of the largest 
temples, lamented not only his waning star, but the grow- 
ing neglect and disrespect of the people for their gooroos. 
And when asked if this were not an omen of the day 
when the gospel would supplant the whole religion, he 
raised both hands and exclaimed, " Undoubtedly ! Most 
D 



32 SKETCHES OE THE MISSIONS. 

certainly ! The time is very near at hand. Only a few 
days." Would it were true. But the end is not yet. 

The Madura mission embraces the " Madura Collec- 
torate," an oblong district of about eighty-eight hundred 
square miles, containing a population of some two mil- 
lions, scattered through nearly four thousand villages, and 
speaking the Tamil language. The city of Madura lies 
near the centre. In the midst of this population eleven 
ordained missionaries and a physician, with their wives 
and other ladies, occupied, in 1870, thirteen stations and 
a hundred and fifty out-stations. They had clustered 
round them twenty-eight churches, with fourteen hun- 
dred communicants, including eight native pastors, a hun- 
dred and twenty-two catecjiists, and a band of teachers. 
A newly-formed theological school at Pasumalai, with 
twenty-two students, is raising a further supply of 
young ministers, preaching as they study. A regularly 
organized system of itinerant preaching has in one year 
reached tw T elve or thirteen hundred villages and seventy 
thousand hearers. The church collections, for local and 
other purposes, have reached, by a steady increase, thirty- 
two hundred rupees a year. An Evangelical Alliance is 
aiding the churches toward self-support. Bible women 
are pleasantly received ; and the change in many homes 
is such that the missionary has ventured to remind his 
congregations, that once they had " donkeys in their 
houses, but now friends and companions." Opposition, 
aud even downright persecution, are not wanting. In a 
village near Madura, recently, a little band of Christians 
were, by artful accusations, brought eight times before 
the police, and twice lodged in jail. But " stolid in- 
difference " is the chief obstacle — utter animal life. The 
signs of promise, however, are not few. The churches 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 33 

are more effectually reaching the higher castes. Mr. 
Washburn reports twenty-five hundred Bibles, or por- 
tions of tlie Bible, sold in nine years around the station 
of Battalagundu. A Brahmin reported that the income 
of the temple at Tirupuvanam had fallen off forty per 
cent, in four years. The persecution near Madura oc- 
casioned a meeting of the friends and relatives to con- 
sider the question of joining the persecuted. And in 
parts of the field occasional facts recall the scenes of 
early Jewish and of later Christian lauds. Mr. Chandler, 
in 1870, encountered a representative of Christ's own 
hearers in a man of wealth and high caste, who has read 
Christian books, and will build a school-house for a Chris- 
tian school, who says he u believes in the Christian re- 
ligion, and would embrace it but for certain family ties, 
from which he cannot now break away." And Mr. Tracy, 
later still, found in Madura just such persons as we find 
at home — young men, intelligent, educated, amiable, 
denouncing the follies of idolatry, cordially admitting 
Bible truths, acknowledging even their own sin, but 
strenuously refusing Christ and an atonement, with the 
declaration that " repentance was the only atonement 
needful." 

In view of this state of things, it will not be surprising 
if, with God's blessing and a sufficient working force, the 
next ten years shall show great changes in this field, for 
w r hich the church has great encouragement to pray, and 
look, and give. Two significant facts arrest the atten- 
tion : More than four fifths of these church members have 
been gathered during the last half of the time, and they 
represent twenty different castes. 

In this goodly work have been found engaged some of 
the choicest spirits that the church has seen since apos- 



34 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

tolic times. The names of Hall, and Xewell, and Poor, 
and Scudder, and Meigs, and Hoisington, and Winslow, 
and Ballantine, and many others now with God, are names 
of blessed memory and holy fragrance. And where are 
the like-minded men to enter in and finish the work? It 
was theirs to open the field to the Christian world : who 
will follow? The task is well begun. u There will prob- 
ably be," said an intelligent observer, " a long prepara- 
tory work in India, and a rapid development." 

Hitherto the enterprise has been carried on amid dis- 
couragements, oppositions, private persecutions, and even 
poisonings of converts ; but it has steadily gone forward. 
And when we see the accelerated motion with which the 
gospel is now pushing its way, when we view men of the 
higher castes coming in and the whole fearful enginery 
of caste giving way, when we see the gathering of the 
Christian denominations toward India, and listen to the 
confessions of the Hindoo organs and leaders, we some- 
times think the harvest may not be far away. 

And to-day, over against the despairing cry of Martyn, 
and the dogged assertion of Sydney Smith, we will put 
the admission of the Indu Prakash, the native Bombay 
newspaper : " We daily see Hindoos, of every caste, 
becoming Christians and devoted ' missionaries of the 
cross.' " And so far as figures can show the power of 
a movement that runs deeper than all figures, ponder the 
following statistics, carefully compiled in 1862. In the 
three Presidencies of India there were representatives 
of thirty-one missionary societies at work, aided by ninety- 
eight ordained native preachers. They were regularly 
dispensing the gospel to one thousand one hundred and 
ninety congregations, besides hundreds of thousands 
of other hearers ; they reckoned a hundred and thirty- 



MISSIONS IN INDIA. 35 

eight thousand registered or nominal Christians, of 
whom thirty-one thousand were communicants ; they 
had ninety thousand children and youth in attendance on 
their schools. 

These facts are to be viewed as only the foundation, 
long laid in silence below the surface, for vastly greater 
changes yet to appear. So deep is the hold of the work, 
not only on the native converts, but on the foreign resi- 
dents, that the churches themselves already (1867) con- 
tribute twenty-five thousand dollars a year ; while British 
officials in India give a quarter of a million dollars an- 
nually to the several missionary societies in that country. 

And could the witty writer of the Edinburgh now visit 
the scene, he might incline, in several particulars, to modify 
his judgment of 1808 — that the missionaries " would de- 
liberately, piously, and conscientiously expose our whole 
Eastern empire to destruction, for the sake of converting 
half a dozen Brahmins, who, after stuffing themselves 
with rum and rice, and borrowing money from the mis- 
sionaries, would run away, and cover the gospel and its 
professors with every species of ridicule and abuse." He 
might be glad, also, to sum up his case a little differently 
than thus : " Shortly stated, then, our argument is this : 
We see not the slightest prospect of success ; we see much 
danger in the attempt, and we doubt if the conversion of 
the Hindoos would ever be more than nominal." It is a 
marvelous specimen of the folly of this world's wisdom, 
and a strong showing how God hath chosen the weak 
things of this world to confound the mighty. 

Never was an enterprise begun and prosecuted with a ' 
deeper sense of helplessness without God, and of whole- 
souled trust in his power and his promise. Judson has 
well expressed the spirit that animated all his comrades. 



36 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

When he had been three years at his post, and had found 
neither a convert, an inquirer, nor an interested listener, 
he could write thus : " If any ask, What prospect of ulti- 
mate success is there? tell them, As much as that there is 
an almighty and faithful God. ... If a ship was lying 
in the river, ready to convey me to any part of the world 
I should choose, and that, too, with the entire approba- 
tion of all my Christian frieuds, I would prefer dying to 
embarking." Two years more witnessed but one in- 
quirer — yet the same song of faith and hope : " I have 
no doubt that God is preparing the way for the conver- 
sion of Burmah to his Son. This thought fills me with 
joy. I know not that I shall live to see a single convert ; 
but, notwithstanding, I feel that I would not leave my 
present situation to be made a king." 

Such was the dauntless courage that led the first For- 
eign Mission of the American churches ; such the first 
handful of Christian soldiers that deliberately sat down 
to the siege of all India — to whom God gave the victory. 
How sublime that faith ! How glorious the reward ! 
" He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious 
seed, shall doubtless come agaiu with rejoicing, bring- 
ing his sheaves with him." Let Christians and churches 
ponder well the struggle of the gospel for a foothold in 
India, and never again entertain one doubt of the sacred 
promise, " Lo ! I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world." 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICBONESIA, ETC. 37 



CHAPTER III. 

MISSIONS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONE- 
SIA, AND MARQUESAS. 

In the year 1809, a dark-skinned boy was found weep- 
ing on the door-steps at Yale College. His name was 
Henry Obookiah (Opukahaia) ; and he came from the 
Sandwich Islands. In a civil war his father and mother 
had been slain before his eyes ; and when he fled with 
his infant brother on his back, the child was killed with a 
spear, and he was taken prisoner. Lonely and wretched, 
the poor boy, at the age of fourteen, was glad to come 
with Captain Brintnell to New Haven. He thirsted for 
instruction ; and he lingered round the college buildings, 
hoping in some way to gratify his burning desire. But 
when at length all hope died out, he sat down and wept. 
The Rev. Edwin Yv 7 ". Dwight, a resident graduate, found 
him there, and kindly took him as a pupil. 

In the autumn of that year came another resident grad- 
uate to New Haven, for the purpose of awakening the 
spirit of missions. It was Samuel J. Mills, Obookiah 
told Mills his simple story — how the people of Hawaii 
" are very bad ; they pray to gods made of wood ; " and 
he longs " to learn to read this Bible, and go back there 
and tell them to pray to God up in heaven." Mills wrote 
to Gordon Hall, " What does this mean? Brother Hall, 
do you understand it? Shall he be sent back unsup- 



38 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

ported, to attempt to reclaim his countrymen? Shall 
we not rather consider these southern islands a proper 
place for the establishment of a mission ? " Mills took 
Obookiah to his own home in Torringford, and thence 
to Andover for a two years' residence ; after which the 
young man found his way to the Grammar School at 
Litchfield, and, when it was opened in 1817, to the 
Foreign Mission School at Cornwall, Conn. At Litch- 
field he became acquainted and intimate with Samuel 
Ruggles, who, about this time (1816), resolved to ac- 
company him to his native island with the gospel. 

In the same vessel which brought Obookiah to Amer- 
ica came two other Hawaiian lads, William Tenooe 
(Kanui) and Thomas Hopu. After roving lives of many 
years, in 1815 they were both converted — Tenooe at 
New Haven, and Hopu after he had removed from New 
Haven to Torringford. Said Hopu, 'after his conversion, 
" I want my poor countrymen to know about Christ." 
These young men, too, had been the objects of much 
personal interest in New Haven ; and in the following 
June, during the sessions of the General Association in 
that city, a meeting was called by some gentlemen to 
discuss the project of a Foreign Mission School. An 
organization was effected under the American Board that 
autumn, at the house of President D wight, three months 
before his death. Next year the school opened. Its first 
principal was Mr. Edwin TV. Dwight, — who found Oboo- 
kiah in tears at Yale College, — and among its first pupils 
were Obookiah, Tenooe, Hopu, and two other Hawaiian 
youths, w 7 ith Samuel Ruggles and Elisha Loomis. 

But Obookiah was never to carry the gospel in person 
to his countrymen. God had a wiser use for him. In 
nine mouths from the opening of the Mission School, he 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. o9 

closed a consistent Christian life with a peaceful Christian 
death. The lively interest which had been gathering 
round him was profoundly deepened by his end and the 
memoir of his life, and was rapidly crystallizing into a 
mission. Being dead, he yet spoke with an emphasis 
and an eloquence that never would have been given him in 
his life. The touching story drew legacies from the dying, 
and tears, prayers, donations, and consecrations from 
the living. " O, what a wonderful thing," he once had 
said, " that the hand of Divine Providence has brought 
me here from that heathenish darkness ! And here I 
have found the name of the Lord Jesus in the Holy Scrip- 
tures, and have read that his blood was shed for many. 
My poor countrymen, who are yet living in the region 
and shadow of death ! — I often feel for them in the night 
season, concerning the loss of their souls. May the Lord 
Jesus dwell in my heart, and prepare me to go and spend 
the remainder of my life with them. But not my will, 
but thine, O Lord, be done." 

The will of the Lord was done. The coming to Amer- 
ica was a more u wonderful thing " than he thought. 
His mantle fell on other shoulders, and in two years more 
a missionary band was ready for the Sandwich Islands. 
Hopu, Tenooe, and John Honoree, natives of the islands, 
were to be accompanied by Hiram Bingham aud Asa 
Thurston, young graduates of Andover, Dr. Thomas 
Holman, a young physician, Daniel Chamberlain, a sub- 
stantial farmer, Samuel Whitney, mechanic and teacher, 
Samuel Ruggles, catechist and teacher, and Elisha 
Loomis, printer and teacher. All the Americans were 
accompanied by their wives, and Mr. Chamberlain by a 
family of five children. Mr. Ruggles seems to have been 
the first to determine upon joining the mission, and Mr. 



40 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

Loomis had been a member of the Mission School. With 
this company went also George Tamoree (Kamaulii), 
•who had been a wanderer in America for fourteen years, 
to return to his father, the subject king of Kauai. 

The ordination of Messrs. Bingham and Thurston at 
Goshen, Conn., drew from the surrounding region a large 
assembly, among whom were a great number of clergy- 
men, and nearly all the members of the Mission School, 
now thirty or more in number ; and " liberal offerings " 
for the mission came in " from all quarters." A fort- 
night later the missionary band was organized at Boston 
into a church of seventeen members ; public services 
were held Friday evening and Saturday forenoon in 
the presence of "crowded" houses, at the Park Street 
Church ; and on the Sabbath six hundred communicants 
sat with them at the table of the Lord. " The occasion," 
says the " Panoplist" of that date, " was one of the most 
interesting and solemn w T hich can exist in this world." 
On Saturday, the 23d of October, 1819, a Christian 
assembly stood upon Long Wharf, and sang, " Blest be 
the tie that binds." There was a prayer by Dr. Worces- 
ter, a farewell speech by Hopu, a song by the mission- 
aries, " When shall we all meet again ; " and a fourteen- 
oared barge swiftly conveyed the little band from their 
w T eeping friends to the brig Thaddeus, which was to 
carry the destiny of the Hawaiian Islands. 

While the missionaries are on their way, let us take a 
look at the people whom they were going to reclaim. 
The ten islands of the Hawaiian group — an area some- 
what less than Massachusetts — were peopled by a well- 
formed, muscular race, with olive complexions and open 
countenances, in the lowest stages of barbarism, sensu- 
ality, and vice. The children went stark naked till 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 41 

they were nine or ten years old ; and the men and women 
wore the scantiest apology for clothing, which neither sex 
hesitated to leave in the hut at home before they passed 
through the village to the surf. The king came more 
than once from the surf to the house of Mr. Ruggles with 
his five wives, all in a state of nudity ; and on being in- 
formed of the impropriety, he came the next time dressed 
— with a pair of silk stockings and a hat ! The natives 
had hardly more modesty or shame than so many animals. 
Husbands had many wives, and wives many husbands, 
and exchanged with each other at pleasure. The most 
revolting forms of vice, as Captain Cook had occasion to 
know, were practiced in open sight. When a foreign 
vessel came to the harbor, the women would swim to it 
in flocks for the vilest of purposes. Two thirds of all the 
children, probably, were destroyed in infancy — strangled 
or buried alive. 

The nation practiced human sacrifice ; and there is a 
cord now at the Missionary Rooms, Chicago, with which 
one high priest had strangled twenty-three human victims. 
They were a race of perpetual thieves ; even kings and 
chiefs kept servants for the special purpose of stealing. 
They were wholesale gamblers, and latterly drunkards. 
Thoroughly savage, they seemed almost destitute of fixed 
habits. When food was plenty, they would take six or 
seven meals a day, and even rise in the night to eat ; at 
other times they would eat but once a day, or perhaps go 
almost fasting for two or three days together. And for 
purposes of sleep the day and the night were much alike. 
Science they had none ; no written language, nor the least 
conception of any mode of communicating thought but by 
oral speech. 

A race that destroyed their own children had little 



42 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. 

tender mercy. Sons often buried their aged parents 
alive, or left them to perish. The sick were abandoned 
to die of want and neglect. Maniacs were stoned to 
death. Captives were tortured and slain. The whole 
system of government and religion was to the last degree 
oppressive. The lands, their products, and occupants 
were the property of the chiefs and the king. The per- 
sons and power of the high chiefs were protected by a 
crushing system of restrictions, called tabus. It was 
tabu and death for a common man to let his shadow fall 
upon a chief, to go upon his house, enter his enclosure, 
or wear his Jcapa, to stand when the king's kapa or his 
bathing water was carried by, or his name mentioned in 
song. In these and a multitude of other ways, " men's 
heads lay at the feet of the king and the chiefs." In like 
manner it was tabu for a woman to eat with her husband, 
or to eat fowl, pork, cocoa-nut, or banana, — things offered 
to the idols, — and death was the penalty. The priest, 
too, came in with his tabus and his exactions for his idols. 
There were six principal gods with names, and an in- 
definite number of spirits. Whatsoever the priest de- 
manded for the god — food, a house, land, human sacri- 
fice — must be forthcoming. If he pronounced a day 
tabu, the man who was found in a canoe, or even enjoy- 
ing the company of his family, died. If any one made 
a noise when prayers were saying, or if the priest pro- 
nounced him irreligious, he died. "When a temple was 
built, and the people had finished the toil, some of them 
were offered in sacrifice. In all these modes, the oppres- 
sion of the nation was enormous. 

The race had once been singularly healthy. They told 
the first missionaries — an exaggeration, of course — that 
formerly they died only of old age. But foreign sailors 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 43 

had introduced diseases, reputable, and especially dis- 
reputable ; and now, between the desolations of war, in- 
fanticide, and infamous diseases widely spread by general 
licentiousness, the nation was rapidly wasting away. 

Such was the forbidding race on whom the missionaries 
were to try the power of the cross. " Probably none of 
you will live to witness the downfall of idolatry," — so 
said the Rev. Mr. Kellogg to Mr. Ruggles, as they took 
breakfast together at East Windsor, the morning- before 
he left home. And so thought, no doubt, the whole com- 
munity. But God's thoughts are not as our thoughts. 

Hopu called up his friend Ruggles at one o'clock on a 
moonlight night (March 31), to get the first glimpse of 
Hawaii ; and at daybreak the snow-capped peak of 
Mauna Kea was in full view. A few hours more, and 
Hopu pointed out the valley where he was born. A boat 
is put off, with Hopu and others in it, which encounters 
some fishermen, and returns. As the boat nears the ves- 
sel, Hopu is seen swinging his hat in the air ; and as soon 
as he arrives within hail, he shouts, " Oahu's idols are no 
more ! " On coming aboard, he brings the thrilling news 
that the old king Kamehameha is dead ; that Liholiho, 
his son, succeeds him ; that the images of the gods are 
all burned; that the men are all " Inoahs," — they eat 
with the women ; that but one chief was killed in settling 
the government, and he for refusing to destroy his gods. 
Next day the message was confirmed. Kamehameha, 
a remarkable man, had passed away. On his death-bed 
he asked an American trader to tell him about the Amer- 
icans' God ; but, said the native informant, in his broken 
English, " He no tell him anything." All the remaining 
intelligence was also true. The missionaries wrote in 
their journal, " Sing, O heavens, for the Lord hath done 



44 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

it." The brig soon anchored in Kalui Bay, the king's 
residence ; and a fourteen days' consultation between the 
king and chiefs followed. Certain foreigners opposed 
their landing ; " they had come to conquer the islands." 
" Then," said the chiefs, " they would not have brought 
their women." The decision was favorable. Messrs. Bing- 
ham, Loomis, Chamberlain, and Honoree go to Oahu ; 
and Messrs. Ruggles and Whitney accompany the young 
Tamoree to his father, the subject king of Kauai. The 
meeting of father and son was deeply affecting. The old 
king, for his son's sake, adopted Mr. Ruggles also as his 
son, and gave him a tract of land, with the power of a 
chief. He prepared him a house, soon built a school-house 
and chapel, and followed him with acts of friendship which 
were of great benefit to the mission while the king lived, 
and after his death. He himself became a hopeful con- 
vert, and in 1824 died in the faith. 

When the missionaries were landed the brig sailed, 
leaving them, out of three years' supplies provided by 
the Board, one barrel of pork, one of beef, and one of 
flour. But the kindness of the natives saved the mission 
from want. 

And now the missionaries settled down to their work. 
They had found a nation sunk in ignorance, sensuality, 
and vice, and nominally without a religion, though, 
really, still in the grasp of many of their old supersti- 
tions. The old religion had been discarded chiefly on 
accouut of its burdensomeness. We cannot here recount 
all the agencies, outer and inner, which brought about 
this remarkable convulsion. But no religious motives 
seem to have had any special power. Indeed, King 
Liholiho was intoxicated when he dealt to the system 
its finishing stroke by compelling his wives to eat pork. 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 45 

And by a providence as remarkable as inscrutable, the 
high priest threw his whole weight into the scale. Into 
this opening, thus signally furnished by the hand of God, 
the missionaries entered with wonder and gratitude. 
The natives educated in America proved less serviceable 
than was expected. Tenooe was soon excommunicated ; 
although in later years he recovered, and lived and died 
a well-reputed Christian. Hopu and Honoree, while they 
continued faithful, had partly lost their native tongue, 
lacked the highest skill as interpreters, and naturally 
failed in judgment. Hopu, at the opening of the first 
revival, was found busy in arranging the inquirers on 
his right hand and his left hand, respectively, as they 
answered yes or no to the single question, " Do you love 
your enemies ? " and was greatly disturbed at being inter- 
rupted. 

The king and the chiefs, with their families, were the 
first pupils. They insisted on the privilege. Within 
three months the king could read the English language, 
and in six months several chiefs could both read and 
write. The missionaries devoted themselves vigorously 
to the work of reducing the native speech to writing ; and 
in less than two years the first sheet of a native spelling- 
book was printed — followed by the second, however, only 
after the lapse of six months. From time to time several 
accessions of laborers were received from America, and 
various changes of location took place. The first bap- 
tized native was Keopuolani, the mother of the king ; and 
others of the high chiefs were among the earlier converts. 
The leading personages, for the most part, showed much 
readiness to adopt the suggestions of the missionaries. 
In 1824 the principal chiefs formally agreed to recognize 
the Sabbath, and to. adopt the ten commandments as the 



46 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

basis of government. They also soon passed a law for- 
bidding females to visit the ships for immoral purposes. 

The gravest obstacles encountered came from vile cap- 
tains and crews of English and American vessels. They 
became ferocious towards the influences and the men that 
checked their lusts. The British whale-ships Daniel, and 
John Palmer, and the American armed schooner Dolphin, 
commanded by Lieutenant Percival, were prominent in 
open outrage. The house of missionary Richards was 
twice assailed by the ruffians of the ship Daniel, encour- 
aged by their captain. On one occasion they came and 
demanded his influence to repeal the law against prostitu- 
tion. On his refusal, they, in the presence of his feeble 
wife, threatened, with horrid oaths, to destroy his prop- 
erty, his house, his life, and the lives of all his family. 
Two days after, forty men returned, with a black flag, 
and armed with knives, repeating the demand. The 
chiefs at length called out a company of two hundred 
men, armed with muskets and spears, and drove them 
off. The crew of the Dolphin, with knives and clubs, on 
the Sabbath assailed a small religious assembly of chiefs, 
gathered at the house of one of their number, who was 
sick. Mr. Bingham, who was also present, fell into their 
hands, on his way to protect his house, and barely escaped 
with his life from the blow of a club and the thrust of a 
knife, being rescued by the natives. A mob of English 
and American whalemen, in October, 1826, started for 
the house of Mr. Richards, at Lahaina, with the inten- 
tion of taking his life. Not finding him, they pillaged 
the town ; while all the native women, from a population 
of four thousand, fled from their lust, for refuge in the' 
mountains. A year later, the family of Mr. Richards 
took refuse in the cellar from the cannon-balls of the 



IN THE SANDAVICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 47 

Jolm Palmer, which passed over the roof of the house. 
When printed copies of the ten commandments were 
about to be issued, this class of men carried their opposi- 
tion, with threats, before the king. At Honolulu, while 
the matter was pending, Mr. Ruggles was approached by 
an American captain, bearing the satirical name of Meek, 
who flourished his dagger, and angrily declared himself 
ready " to bathe his hauds in the heart's blood of every 
missionary who had anything to do with it." At one 
time, twenty-one sailors came up the hill, with clubs, 
threatening to kill the missionaries unless they were 
furnished with women. The natives, gathering for wor- 
ship, immediately thronged around the house so thickly 
that they were intimidated, and sneaked away. At 
another time, fourteen of them surrouuded the mis- 
sionary, with the same demand, but were frightened off 
by the resolute bearing of the noble chief Kapiolani — a 
majestic woman, six feet high — who, arriving at the in- 
stant, swung her umbrella over her head, with the crisp 
words, "Be off in a moment, or I will have every one 
of you in irons." She was the same Christian heroine 
who, in 1824, broke the terrible spell which hung over 
the volcano Kilauea, by venturing down into the crater, 
in defiance of the goddess Pele, hurling stones into the 
boiling lake, and worshiping Jehovah on its black ledge. 

It is easy to understand why a certain class of captains 
and sailors have always pronounced the Sandwich Islands 
mission a wretched failure. 

The missionaries labored on undaunted. Eight years 
from their landing found them at work, some thirty-two 
in number, with four hundred and forty native teachers, 
twelve thousand Sabbath hearers, and twenty-six thou- 
sand pupils in their schools. At this time, about fifty 



48 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

natives, including Kaahumanu, the Queen Regent, and 
many of the principal chiefs, were members of the church. 
And now, in the year 1828, the dews of heaven began to 
fall visibly upon the mission. For two or three years 
the way had been preparing. Kaahumanu, converted in 
1828, and several other high chiefs, had thrown them- 
selves vigorously and heartily into the work. " They 
made repeated tours around all the principal islands," 
says Mr. Dibble, " assembling the people from village to 
village, and delivering addresses day after day, in which 
they prohibited immoral acts, enjoined the observance of 
the Sabbath, encouraged the people to learn to read, and 
exhorted them to turn to God, and to love and obey the 
Saviour of sinners." " The effect was electrical — per- 
vading at once every island of the group, every obscure 
village and district, and operating with immense power 
on all grades and conditions of society. The chiefs gave 
orders to the people to erect houses of worship, to build 
school-houses, and to learn to read — they readily did 
so ; to listen to the instructions of the missionaries — they 
at once came in crowds for that purpose." About this 
time, too (May, 1825), the remains of King Liholiho 
and liis wife were brought back from their unfortunate 
expedition to England, where they died from the measles. 
Their attending chiefs filled the ears of the people with 
what they saw in England ; and Lord Byron, commander 
of the British frigate which brought the remains, gave an 
honorable testimony to the missionaries. 

These various influences caused a great rush to hear 
the Word of God. The people would come regularly, 
fifty or sixty miles, traveling the whole of Saturday, to 
attend Sabbath worship ; and would gather in little com- 
panies, from every point of the compass, like the tribes 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 49 

as they went np to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the printed 
Word was circulated throughout the villages. 

At length the early fruits appeared. In the year 1828, 
a gracious work began, simultaneously and without com- 
munication, in the islands of Hawaii, Oahu, and Maui. 
It came unexpectedly. The transactions at Kaavaloa 
(Hawaii) well illustrate the work. Mr. Ruggles was 
away from home, with Mr. Bishop, on an excursion to 
visit the schools of the island. They had been wrecked, 
and had swum ashore. Two natives, who were sent home 
for shoes and clothing, brought a message from Mrs. Bug- 
gies to her husband, requesting his immediate return, for 
" strange things were happening — the natives were com- 
ing in companies, inquiring what they should do to be 
saved." He hastened back, and found the house sur- 
rounded from morning till night, and almost from night 
till morning. A company of ten or twenty would be re- 
ceived into the house, and another company would wait 
their turn at the gate. So it went on for weeks, and 
even months, and the missionaries could get no rest or 
refreshment, except as they called in Kapiolani and 
others of the converted chiefs to relieve them. Mr. and 
Mrs. Ruggles had the names of twenty-five hundred in- 
quirers on their books. With multitudes, it was, no doubt, 
but sympathy or fashion ; but there were also a large 
number of real inquirers, and many hopeful conversions. 
All the converts were kept in training classes a year be- 
fore they were admitted to the church, and then only on 
the strictest examination. During the two following 
years, three hundred and fifty persons were received tG 
communion at the several stations. For a time the work 
seemed to lull again, but in 1836 the whole aspect of 
the field was so inviting that the Board sent out a strong 

o o 



50 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

missionary re-enforcement of thirty-two persons, male and 
female. 

At this time, and for the following year, the hearts of 
the missionaries were singularly drawn out in desires and 
prayers for the conversion, not only of the islands, but of 
America and of the world. And scarcely had the new 
laborers been assigned to their places, and learned the 
language, when (in 1838) there began, and continued for 
six years, one of the most remarkable awakenings that 
the world has ever witnessed. All hearts seemed tender. 
"Whenever the Word was preached, conviction and con- 
versions followed. The churches roused up to self- 
examination and prayer ; the stupid listened ; the vile 
and groveling learned to feel ; the congregations became 
immense, and sometimes left their churches for the open 
air, and the prayer meetings left the lecture-room for the 
body of the church. There were congregations of four, 
five, and six thousand persons. The labors of the mis- 
sionaries were almost incredible. They traveled through 
the islands, facing the storms and climbing the ravines, 
visiting, preaching, conversing, examining, in season, out 
of season. They preached from seven to twenty, or even 
thirty times a week ; and the sense of guilt in the hearers 
often broke forth in groans and loud cries. Probably 
many indiscretions were committed, and there were many 
spurious conversions. But, after all allowances, time 
showed that a wonderful work was wrought. During 
the six years from 1838 to 1843, inclusive, twenty-seven 
thousand persons were admitted to the churches. In 
some instances the crowds to be baptized on a given 
Sabbath required extraordinary modes of baptism ; and 
Mr. Coan, whose labors were incessant, and who baptized 
some seven thousand persons, is said to have sprinkled 






IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 51 

water with a brush upon the candidates as they came 
before him in throngs. 

The next twenty years added more than twenty thou- 
sand other members to the churches, making the whole 
number received, up to the end of the connection with 
the American Board in 1863, some fifty thousand souls. 
Many of these had then been excommunicated — in some 
instances, it was thought, too hastily ; many thousand had 
gone home to heaven, and in 1863 some twenty thousand 
still survived in connection with the churches. 

At length came the time when the islands were to be 
recognized as a nominally Christian nation, and the re- 
sponsibility of their Christian institutions was to be rolled 
off upon themselves. In June, 1863, Dr. Anderson, 
Senior Secretary of the American Board, met with the 
Hawaiian Evangelical Association to discuss this im- 
portant measure. After twenty-one days of debate, the 
result was reached with perfect unanimity, and the As- 
sociation agreed to assume the responsibility hitherto 
sustained by the Board. This measure was consum- 
mated by the Board in the autumn following, and those 
stations no longer look to the American churches for 
management and control. " The mission has been, as 
such, disbanded and merged in the community." 

On the loth of January, 1864, at Queen's Hospital, 
Honolulu, died William Kanui (Tenooe), aged sixty- 
six years, the last of the native youth who gave rise to 
the mission and accompanied the first missionaries. He 
had wandered — had been excommunicated — and w T as 
restored ; and after many years of faithful service he died 
in the triumph of faith. In his last sickness he used " to 
recount the wonderful ways " in which God had led him. 
u The names of Cornelius, Mills, Beecher, Daggett, Pren- 



52 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

tice, Griffin, and others were often on his lips ; " and he 
went, no doubt, to join them all above. God had spared 
his life to see the whole miraculous change that had lifted 
his nation from the depths of degradation to civilization 
and Christianity. Could the spirit of Henry Obookiah 
have stood in Honolulu, soon after the funeral of Kanui, 
he would have hardly recognized his native island, ex- 
cept by its great natural landmarks. He would have 
seen the city of Honolulu, once a place of grass huts and 
filthy lanes, now marked by substantial houses and side- 
walks, and a general air of civilization ; a race of once 
naked savages decently attired, and living, some of them, 
in comparative refinement; a nation of readers, whom he 
left without an alphabet ; Christian marriage firmly estab- 
lished in place of almost promiscuous concubinage ; prop- 
erty in the interior exposed with absolute security for an 
indefinite time, where formerly nothing was safe for an 
hour ; the islands dotted with a hundred capacious church 
edifices, built by native hands, some of them made of 
stone, most of them with bells ; a noble array of several 
hundred common schools, two female seminaries, a Nor- 
mal school for natives, a high-school that furnished the 
first scholar to one of the classes in Williams College ; a 
theological seminary and twenty-nine native preachers, 
besides eighteen male and female missionaries sent to 
the Marquesas Islands ; near twenty thousand living 
church members ; a government with a settled constitu- 
tion, a legislature, and courts of justice, and avowing the 
Christian religion to be " the established national religion 
of the Hawaiian Islands." 

These facts exhibit the bright and marvelous aspect of 
the case. But, of course, they have their drawbacks. 
The Sandwich Islands are not Paradise, nor even Amer- 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 53 

ica. The plane of civilization is, as it must be, far below 
that of our own-country. The old habits still shade into 
the new. Peculiar temptations to intemperance and licen- 
tiousness come down by inheritance. Foreign interven- 
tions and oppositions have been, and still are, grave hin- 
drances. Church members but fifty years removed from 
a state of brutalism cannot, and do not, show the stability, 
intelligence, and culture of those who inherit the Christian 
influences of a thousand years. 

But the amazing transformation of the islands is a fact 
attested not alone by the statements of the missionaries, 
or of the Board that employed them. The most generous 
testimony has come from other sources. The Rev. F. S. 
Rising, of the American Church Missionary Society, ex- 
plored the islands in 1866, for the express purpose of 
testing the question. He visited nearly every mission 
station, examined the institutions, religious, educational, 
social ; made the personal acquaintance of the missionaries 
of all creeds, and conversed with persons of every profes- 
sion and social grade. And he writes to the Secretary 
of the American Board, " The deeper I pushed my investi- 
gations, the stronger became my conviction, that what 
"had been on your part necessarily an experimental work 
in modern missions had, under God, proved an eminent 
success. Every sunrise brought me new reasons for 
admiring the power of divine grace, which can lift the 
poor out of the dust, and set him among princes. Every 
sunsetting gave me fresh cause to bless the Lord for that 
infinite love which enables us to bring to our fellow-men 
such rich blessings as your missionaries have bestowed 
on the Hawaiian Islands. To me it seemed marvelous 
that in comparatively so few years, the social, political, 
and religious life of the nation should have undergone so 



54 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

radijal arid blessed a change as it has. Looking at the 
kingdom of Hawaii-nei, as it to-day has its recognized 
place among the world's sovereignties, I cannot but see 
in it one of the brightest trophies of the power of the 
cross." "What of Hawaiian Christianity? I would 
apply to it the same test by which we measure the 
Christianity of our own and other lands. There are 
certain outward signs which indicate that it has a high 
place in the national respect, conscience, and affection. 
Possessing these visible marks, we declare of any country 
that it is Christian. The Hawaiian kingdom, for this 
reason, is properly and truly called so. The constitu- 
tion recognizes the Christian faith as the religion of the 
nation. The Bible is found in almost every hut. Prayer 
— social, family, and individual — is a popular habit. 
The Lord's day is more sacredly observed than in New 
York. Churches of stone or brick dot the valleys and 
crown the hill-tops, and have been built by the voluntary 
contributions of the natives. There the Word is preached, 
and the sacraments administered. Sunday schools abound. 
The contributions of the people for religious uses are very 
generous, and there is a native ministry growing in num- 
bers and influence, girded for carrying on the work so 
well begun. The past history of the Hawaiian mission 
abounds with bright examples, like Kaahumanu and 
Kapiolani, and some were pointed out to me as I went 
to and fro. They were at one time notoriously wicked. 
Their lives are manifestly changed. They are striving 
to be holy in their hearts and lives. They are fond of the 
Bible, of the sanctuary, and prayer. Their theology may 
be crude, but their faith in Christ is simple and tenacious. 
And when we see some such in every congregation, we 
know that the work has not been altogether in vain." 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 55 

In 1860 Richard H. Daua, Esq., a distinguished Boston 
lawyer, of the Episcopal Church, gave a similar testi- 
mony in the New York Tribune, during his visit to 
the islands. Among other things, he mentions that 
" the proportion of inhabitants who can read and write 
is greater than in New England ; " that they may be seen 
" going to school and public worship with more regularity 
than the people at home ; " that after attending the ex- 
amination of Oahu College, " he advised the young men 
to remain there to the end of their course [then extend- 
ing only to Junior year], as they could not pass the 
Freshman and Sophomore years more profitably else- 
where, in my judgment ; " that " in no place in the world 
that I have visited are the rules which control vice and 
regulate amusement so strict, yet' so reasonable, and so 
fairly enforced ; " that " in the interior it is well known 
that a man may travel alone with money through the 
wildest spots unarmed ; " and that he " found no hut 
without its Bible and hymn book in the native tongue, 
and the practice of family prayer and grace before meat, 
though it.be no more than a oalabash of poi and a few 
dried fish, and whether at home or on a journey, is as 
common as in New England a century ago." 

There is one sad aspect about this interesting nation. 
The population has been steadily declining since the 
islands were first discovered. Cook, in 1773, estimated 
the number of inhabitants at four hundred thousand. 
This estimate, long- thought to be exasperated, is now 
supposed to be not far from the truth. But in 1823, wars, 
infanticide, foreign lust, imported drinks, and disease, 
had reduced them to the estimated number of one hun- 
dred and forty-two thousand ; and in 1830, to the ascer- 
tained number of one hundred and thirty thousand. In 



56 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

the lapse of a few years after the first visits of foreign 
vessels, half the population are said to have been swept 
away with diseases induced or heightened by their unholy 
intercourse. The mission has done what could be done 
to save the nation. But the wide taint of infamous dis- 
eases was descending down the national life before the 
missionaries reached the islands ; and the flood-gates of 
intemperance were wide open. The gospel has retarded 
the nation's decline. But foreign influences have always 
interfered — and now, perhaps, more than ever. The 
sale of ardent spirits w r as once checked, but is now free. 
The present monarch stands aloof from the policy of some 
of his predecessors, and from the influence of our mission- 
aries. And the population, reduced to sixty-two thou- 
sand in 1866, seems to be steadily declining. The Pa- 
cific Advertiser, which furnishes the facts, finds the 
chief cause in the fearful prevalence, still, of vice and 
crime, which are said to have been increasing of late ; 
and the reason for this increase is " political degrada- 
tion," and the readiness with which the people now ob- 
tain intoxicating drinks. . It must be remembered that 
" in the height of the whaling season, the number of 
transient seamen in the port of Honolulu equals half the 
population of the town ; " and the influences they bring 
breathe largely of hell. Commercial forces and move- 
ments, meanwhile, are changing the islands. The lands 
are already passing into the hands of foreign capitalists, 
and the islauds are falling into the thoroughfare of the 
nations. 

The proper sequel, therefore, of this grand missionary 
triumph may be taken away ; and the race itself, as a 
nation, may possibly cease to be. But in no event can 
the value or the glory of the work achieved be destroyed. 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 57 

Not only will thousands on thousands of human souls 
thereby have been brought into the kingdom, by the labor 
of a hundred missionaries, and the expenditure of perhaps 
a million dollars from America, but a grand experiment 
will have been tried before the world, and an imperish- 
able memorial erected for all time, of what the remedial 
power of the gospel can accomplish, in an incredibly short 
time, upon a most imbruted race. " Fifty years ago," 
says Dr. A. P. Peabody, " the half-reasoning elephant, 
or the tractable and troth-keeping dog, might have seemed 
the peer, or more, of the unreasoning and conscienceless 
Hawaiian. From that very race, from that very genera- 
tion, with which the nobler brutes might have scorned to 
claim kindred, have been developed the peers of saints 
and angels." And all the more glorious is the move- 
ment, that the nation was sunk so low, and was so rapid- 
ly wasting away. " If the gospel," says Dr. Anderson, 
" took the people at the lowest point of social existence, 
— at death's door, when beyond the reach of all human 
remedies, with the causes of decline and destruction all 
in their most vigorous operation, — and has made them 
a Christian people, checked the tide of depopulation, and 
has raised the nation so on the scale of social life, as to 
have gained for it an acknowledged place among the na- 
tions of the earth, what more wonderful illustration can 
there be of its remedial power?" 

The history of the Sandwich Islands will stand forever 
as the vindication to the caviler of the worth of Chris- 
tian missions, and as a demonstration to the Christian of 
what they might be expected to accomplish in other lands, 
if prosecuted with a vigor at all proportioned to the na- 
ture and extent of the field, and crowned with the bless- 
ing of God. 



58 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

The mission church must in due time turn missionary. 
So rightly reasoned the members of the Sandwich Islands 
mission. Thirty years had elapsed ; fifteen hundred dol- 
lars a year were collected at the monthly concert ; the 
first native pastor had been ordained by a council of 
native churches, and in the same year the members of. 
the mission proposed that Hawaiian Christians should 
carry the gospel to other islands. The Prudential Com- 
mittee at Boston warmly approved the proposal. Another 
year (1850) saw the Hawaiian Missionary Society formed 
at Honolulu. 

Two thousand miles away to the south-west of Hono- 
lulu lie an immense number of islands — two thousand 
or more — now embraced under the general name of 
Micronesia — the Little Islands. Scattered in groups 
known by various appellations — Ladrones, Carolines, 
and the like — they stretch from three degrees south to 
twenty degrees north of the equator, and were then sup- 
posed to contain a population of two hundred thousand. 
Many of them were built wholly by the coral insect, and 
lie flat upon the water, while a few of tnem are basaltic 
islands, with mountains two or three thousand feet in 
height. These various groups differ in language and in 
the details of their customs and superstitions, but agree 
in the general characteristics of their native occupants. 
They are the natural homes of indolence and sensuality, 
of theft and violence. The warmth of the climate ren- 
ders clothing a superfluity, and houses needless except 
for shade ; while the constant vegetation of the tropics 
dispenses with accumulated stores of food. A race of 
tawny savages stalk round almost or quite naked, swim 
like fish in the waters, or bask in the sunshine on shore. 
They prove as ready to catch, as vile sailors are to com- 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 59 

municate, the vices of civilized lands. Intemperance is 
an easily besetting sin, and licentiousness is, with rare 
exceptions, the general and almost ineradicable pollution 
of the Pacific Islands. But in the Kingsmill group the 
missionaries found a people who, though practicing poly- 
gamy, held in honor the chastity of woman. 

The attention of the missionaries was turned to three 
of these groups of islands — the Caroline, the Marshall, 
or Mulgrave, and the Kingsmill, or Gilbert Islands. 

The eastern portion of the Caroline chain was natural- 
ly fixed upon as the centre of operations by reason of 
the convenient location and healthful climate. Two of 
these, Kusaie and Ponape, were the first to be occupied. 
Ponape, or Ascension Island, is a high basaltic island, 
sixty miles in circumference, surrounded by ten smaller 
basaltic islands, all inclosed within a coral reef. It rises 
to the height of two thousand eight hundred and fifty 
feet, and has its rivers and waterfalls. The island is a 
physical paradise, with a delightful climate, in which the 
range of the thermometer for three years was but seven- 
teen degrees, and with a various and luxuriant vegeta- 
tion. Among the indigenous products are the bread- 
fruit, banana, cocoa-nut, taro, sugar-cane, ava, arrowroot, 
sassafras, sago, wild orange, and mango, with an im- 
mense variety of timber trees ; while lemons, oranges, 
pine-apples, coffee, tamarinds, guava, tobacco, and other 
exotics thrive abundantly. From the mangrove trees 
that line the shore the ground rises by a series of natural 
terraces ; and while twenty varieties of birds fill the air 
with life, a population of five thousand people are so 
hidden in the overhanging forests and shrubbery that but 
for an occasional canoe, or a smoke ascending, the pass- 
ing vessel would scarcely know it to be inhabited. The 



60 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

inhabitants seem to be of Malay descent, and the place 
was " a moral Sodom." 

Kusaie, or Strong's Island, the easternmost of the 
Carolines, is one of a small cluster, aud is about thirty 
miles in circumference. It rises to the height of two 
thousand feet, wooded to the summit, and it then con- 
tained some one thousand five hundred people, strongly 
Asiatic both in look and speech. Here polygamy was 
unknown, and labor comparatively honorable. Many of 
the inhabitants, with an unusual quickness of apprehen- 
sion, had learned of foreigners a kind of broken English 
before the missionaries arrived, and the Good Kin^r 
George, as his subjects called him, had, with surprising 
wisdom, forbidden the tapping of the cocoa-nut tree for 
the manufacture of intoxicating drink. 

North-east of Kusaie lie the Marshall, sometimes called 
Mulgrave, Islands, subdivided into the Radack and Ra- 
lick, or eastern and western chains. About thirty prin- 
cipal islands compose the group. They are all of coral 
formation, but much higher, more fertile and inviting, 
than the Gilbert group, south of them. Majuro, or 
Arrowsmith, for example, is described as a magnificent 
island, rising eight or ten feet above the water at the 
landing-place, sprinkled with forests of breadfruit and 
pandanus trees, and abounding with cocoa-nuts and ba- 
nanas. The population of the whole group was esti- 
mated at twelve thousand or upwards, speaking, to some 
extent, different languages. They had been compara- 
tively uncontaminated by foreign intercourse from their 
reputation for ferocity. Several vessels had been cut off 
by them, and a great number of foreigners killed at 
different times, in retaliation for a former deadly attack 
upon the natives. The residence of the king aud princi- 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 61 

pal chiefs was at Ebon Island. The natives are in some 
respects superior to many of the Pacific islanders. Their 
features are sharper, their persons spare and athletic, 
and their countenances vivacious. The women wear 
their Jiair smoothly parted on the forehead, and neatly 
rolled up in the neck, sometimes adorned with flowers, 
and their skirts, fine and beautifully braided and bor- 
dered, extend from the waist to the feet. The men ex- 
hibit much more skill than is common in this region, and 
are fond of ornaments. Their comparative intelligence 
and exemption from foreign influence constituted the in- 
viting aspect of this case ; their alleged ferocity the for- 
midable feature. 

Directly south of the Marshall Islands, on both sides 
of the equator, lie the Kingsmill, or Gilbert Islands. 
Fifteen or sixteen principal islands, surrounded by a 
multitude of islets, raised by the coral insect barely 
above the level of the ocean, contain a population of 
thirty or forty thousand, speaking mostly a common 
language resembling the Hawaiian. The land is densely 
covered with cocoa-nut groves. This is the " tree of a 
thousand uses," furnishing the natives almost " every- 
thing they eat, drink, wear, live in, or use in any way." 
Their hats, clothing, mats, and cords are made from its 
leaves ; their houses are built from its timber ; they eat 
the fruit, drink the milk, make molasses and rum from 
its juice, and manufacture from it immense quantities of 
oil for use and for sale. Their religion is the loosest 
system of spirit-worship, without priest, idol, or temple. 
They practice polygamy. The children go naked for ten 
or twelve years. The men wear a girdle, and the women 
a broader mat around them. Their appearance of nudity 
is relieved by the tattooing with which they are profusely 



62 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

and skillfully adorned. The considerable population, 
the unity of origin, faith, and language, and the general 
resemblance of their speech to the Hawaiian, rendered 
this group inviting, especially to the Sandwich Island 
laborers, although its torrid sun, comparatively -barren 
soil, and limited range of vegetation made it not alto- 
gether favorable for the American missionaries' home. 

Such was the region to which the gospel was to be 
carried. On the 18th of November, 1851, missionaries 
Snow and Gulick, with their wives, left Boston in the 
Esther May, and two months afterward, Mr. and Mrs. 
Sturges, in the Snow Squall, for Micronesia by way of 
the Sandwich Islands. Seven native Hawaiians were 
ready to join them, but two only, with their wives, were 
selected for the opening of the mission. The native 
churches made liberal contributions for their outfit and 
support. King Kamehameha III. gave them a noble 
letter of commendation to the Micronesian chiefs. A 
mission church was organized early in July, 1852, and 
on the loth of the same month, just thirty-three years, 
or one whole generation, from the date of the former 
parting at Long Wharf, in Boston, the like scene took 
place in the harbor of Honolulu. A crowd of natives 
thronged the shore as the missionaries put off for the 
schooner Caroline. On the deck of the schooner there 
is a prayer in Hawaiian, and another in English, a verse 
of the Missionary Hymn, a shaking of friendly hands, 
and with a gentle breeze the vessel glides aw r ay. 

The Caroline arrived at the Gilbert Islands, and on 
the 21st of August anchored at Kusaie. The mission- 
aries were pleasantly received by Good King George in 
a faded flannel shirt, while his wife sat by in a short 
cotton gown, and his subjects approached him crouching 






IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 63 

on their hands and knees. He consented to the mission, 
gave them supplies, promised them land and a house, 
and on hearing the thirteenth chapter of Romans and 
witnessing their worship, he pronounced both to be 
" first rate." Messrs. Snow, Opunui, and their wives 
commenced their work in this isolated place, where at 
one time they passed a period of two full years without 
a letter from America. A fortnight later the Caroline 
anchored in the land-locked harbor of Pouape, where the 
king came on board, and after some conversation, told 
them it should be " good for them to stop." And here 
Messrs. Sturges, Gulick, Kaaikaula, and their wives 
were soon established in their new home. 

In 1854 they were followed by Dr. Pierson and the 
native Hawaiian, Kanoa. These brethren brought a 
blessing to the crew of the whaling bark Belle that 
carried them ; her three mates were converted on the 
voyage. As they cruised among the Marshall Islands 
on their way to Kusaie, by a good providence, the king's 
sister, a remarkable woman, took passage from Ebon to 
another island, became attached to the missionaries, and 
spoke their praises at every island where they touched. 
The missionaries proceeded on their voyage to Kusaie, 
but with a deep conviction that the Lord was calling 
them back to the Marshall group. 

At length (1857) the Morning Star, the children's 
vessel, heaves in sight at Kusaie. She brings Mr. and 
Mrs. Bingham, and Kauakaole, with his wife, ou their 
way to the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. They are 
joined here by Messrs. Pierson and Doane, and sail for 
their destination. As they set out for Ebon Island, of 
the Marshall group, they are solemnly warned by old 
sea captains of the danger that awaits them from that 



64 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

ferocious people. On approaching the island, the cap- 
tain put up his boarding nettings, stationed his men fore 
and aft, and anxiously awaited the issue. Fifteen canoes 
drew near, jammed full of men. In the prow of the 
foremost stood a powerful man with a wreath on his 
head and huge rings in his ears. On they came, but in 
the same instant Dr. Pierson and the savage recognized 
each other as old acquaintances, and the savage came on 
board shouting, " Docotor, docotor ! " in perfect delight. 
Many months before, it seems, this man and a hundred 
others had been driven by a storm upon Kusaie, where 
the missionaries had rescued them, and befriended them 
with food and medicine, and they had returned to their 
homes in peace. So the Lord befriended the mission- 
aries in turn, and prepared them a welcome among the 
so-called cannibals. And when, after a further cruise 
of thirty days, the Morning Star returned to leave the 
missionaries at Ebon, they were met on the water by 
twenty canoe loads of people shouting, singing, and 
dancing for joy. On the shore they were received with 
every demonstration of friendship, and the aged female 
chief who had once sailed with Dr. Pierson among the 
islands took him by both hands, and led him joyfully to 
her house. On the same voyage Mr. Bingham and 
Kanoa were set down at Apaiang, of the Gilbert group, 
where the king gave them a pleasant home. 

Thus was the gospel first carried to these three groups 
of islands ; and here we leave them and their fellow- 
laborers that followed them, chiefly Hawaiians, at their 
self-denying toils. We will briefly sketch the progress 
of the work on the principal island, Ponape, as a speci- 
men of the whole. Here the king, though almost help- 
less with the palsy, was friendly to the enterprise ; while 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 65 

the Nanakin, his chief officer, expressed himself warmly, 
and received an English book with the avowed deter- 
mination to learn to read it. " The cooper should teach 
him how, or he would pound him." Two short months 
sufficed to awaken the enmity of unprincipled foreigners. 
Two captains had bought one of the small islands, and 
made out a deed for the Nanakin to sign. He brought 
it to the missionaries, who found it to contain the gross- 
est frauds, including even the forgery of the Nanakin's 
signature. The exposure, of course, created hostility. 
Six months brought fifteen vessels, and though in most 
instances the captains were friendly, and even kind, every 
arrival was attended with deplorable influences on the 
morals of the native women. Then came the opening 
of a school, some of the scholars sitting patiently for six 
long hours to get an opportunity to steal. Then came 
the small-pox, and before the end of the first year it had 
carried off multitudes of the inhabitants, broken up the 
school, arrested all plans of labor, prostrated the Ha- 
waiian preacher, and produced a general recklessness 
and bitterness of feeling through the island. To add to 
the evil, the vaccine matter received from the Sandwich 
Islands proved worthless, and wicked foreigners circu- 
lated the report that the missionaries had introduced 
and were spreading the disease. By resorting boldly to 
inoculation, and beginning with the Nanakin, the mis- 
sionaries at length saved many lives and regained confi- 
dence. In the midst of this calamity, Mr. Sturges' 
house burned up, with all its contents, driving him and 
his family to the woods. Hostilities arose, also, among 
the tribes, attended with robberies and murders, and the 
sailors continued to bring moral pollution. One day, in 
his accustomed tour, Mr. Sturges passed near three 



66 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

brothels, all kept by foreigners. But the missionaries 
toiled on, resumed their schools, gathered their growing 
congregations, privately sowed the good seed, and in 
four years' time w 7 ere printing hymns and Old Testament 
stories in Ponapean. After a night of eight years three 
converts were at one time received to their little church, 
followed by eight others soon ; and meanwhile a little 
church of six members was formed in another part of the 
island. Revivals brought opposition, and more or less 
of persecution. At length a chapel was built in the 
mountains by native hands, and at the principal station a 
church edifice, forty feet by sixty, solemnly dedicated to 
God. Hardly was it consecrated when the Morning 
Star arrived with an eight hundred pound bell, the gift 
of friends in Illinois ; and within a fortnight the Nanakin, 
with his wife and fourteen other converts, sat down at 
the table of the Lord. The chief had vibrated back and 
forth — now proclaiming Sabbath observance, breaking 
up five brothels, and following the missionary round the 
island, and now distributing toddy profusely among the 
people — till at length the Lord brought him in. Half 
the islanders had by this time yielded an outward defer- 
ence to the true religion. Early in the year 1867 there 
were religious services regularly held at twelve principal 
places, a thousand readers, one hundred and sixty-one 
church members in good standing, and numbers of con- 
verts soon to be received. Three new churches had 
been erected by the natives within two years, in one of 
which (in May, 1867) one hundred communicants sat 
down to the Lord's table, in the presence of six hundred 
spectators, on the very spot where, fourteen years before, 
Mr. Sturges w r as near being overcome and robbed ; and 
another of these churches just built, though seating five 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 67 

hundred persons, will soon need to be enlarged. At 
Kusaie there are one hundred and eighty-three church 
members, of whom ninety-three were received in 1867.* 
Three stone chapels had just been erected, four native 
deacons ordained, and the eye of the missionary turned 
to one man — the only living child of Good King George 
— for a native pastor ; while the influence of the churches 
is reacting on the sailors. There are about sixty church 
members now at the Marshall Islands, and the prospects 
are eminently hopeful. In the Gilbert group it is still 
seed-time, but the knowledge is spreading from island to 
island. 

Among the laborers are ten Hawaiian missionaries, 
who have toiled wisely and faithfully. On many of these 
islands the population is steadily growing less. Possibly 
the religious books that now exist in these several 
tongues may one day lie, like Eliot's Indian Bible, with- 
out a reader ; but they will be monuments of noble 
Christian self-denial, and mementoes of souls gathered 
into the kingdom of heaven. 

It remains to say a few words of the Marquesas. The 
mission here is in every aspect most remarkable, whether 
we consider the character of the people, the origin, the 
agency, or the influence of the mission. The Marquesas 
Islands, six in number, are situated nearly as far from 
Micronesia as from Hawaii. They are of volcanic for- 
mation, their mountains rising to the height of four or 
five thousand feet, with a wonderful grandeur and variety 
of scenery. The climate is fine, and the valleys unsur- 
passed in fertility, abounding in all manner of tropical 
fruits and vegetation. The fruits hang temptingly upon 

* The statistics are of 1868. See Appendix. 
G 



68 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

the trees, or drop on the ground. The islands contain 
about eight thousand people, of Malay origin, speaking 
a language very similar to the Hawaiian. The natives 
have fine athletic forms, great vivacity and quick appre- 
hension, but are to the last degree impatient of labor and 
control. They are, in fact, among the most lawless, 
quarrelsome, and ferocious of the tribes of men. They 
have no acknowledged form of government. The indi- 
vidual gluts his revenge unhindered, and the clans in the 
various valleys are in perpetual warfare. The bodies of 
the slain are cut in pieces, and distributed among the 
clan to be devoured, the little children even partaking 
of the horrid meal. In 1859, when the whale-ship Tar- 
light was wrecked off the Island of Hivaoa, the natives 
conspired to massacre the crew in order to plunder the 
vessel, though in both objects they were frustrated. The 
community cannot have forgotten the letter of President 
Lincoln to the missionary Kekela, a few years ago, 
thanking him for his services in rescuing the mate of an 
American ship, Mr. TThalon, from being roasted and 
eaten by these cannibals. The disposition of the natives 
is to some degree symbolized by their personal appear- 
ance — the men hideously tattooed with lizards, snakes, 
birds, and fishes, and the women smeared with cocoa-nut 
oil and turmeric. Add to this the most oppressive system 
of tabus, so that, for example, the father, the mother, 
and the grown-up daughter must all eat apart from each 
other, and we have some idea of the obstacles to the 
Christian religion in those islands. 

Some years ago a Hawaiian youth was left by a vessel, 
at these islands sick. He recovered, and by his superior 
knowledge became a man of importance, and married 
the daughter of the high chief Mattunui. The father- 



IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, ETC. 69 

in-law was so impressed with his acquisitions, which, as 
he learned, were derived from the missionaries, that, 
after consultation with the other chiefs, he embarked for 
Lahaina to seek missionaries for Marquesas. This was 
in 1853. The Hawaiian Society felt that the call was 
from God. Two native pastors — one of them Kekela — 
and two native teachers, accompanied by their wives, 
were deputed to go. They were welcomed with joy. 
Mattunui sat up all night to tell of the " strange things f ? 
he saw and heard in the Hawaiian Islands ; and an 
audience of a hundred and fifty listened to preaching 
on the following Sabbath. The missionaries entered at 
once on their various forms of Christian activity, organ- 
izing their schools, and in due time translating the Gos- 
pel of John. One foreigner alone was with them — Mr. 
Bicknell, an English mechanic, a noble man, afterward 
ordained a preacher ; otherwise the w 7 hole enterprise was 
Hawaiian. Roman Catholic priests hurried at once to 
the islands, but the Hawaiian preachers held on, amid 
immense discouragements, with great energy and perse- 
verance, and with admirable good sense. At length God 
gave them the first convert, Abraham Natua. Soon 
after this the missionaries determined to break down the 
system of tabus, and a great feast was gotten up on the 
mission premises, at which the high chief Mattunui, 
and many others, sat down for the first time with their 
wives, and broke through the system in every available 
direction. It was a grand blow at the whole institution. 
In four years the intolerable thievishness of the natives 
was so far checked within the range of the missions that 
clothing could be exposed, and the mission premises 
could be left unlocked the entire day, with perfect safety. 
Urgent calls came from various parts of the islands for 



70 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

missionaries, five or six pieces of land-^-anore than could 
be occupied — being given in Hivaoa alone. Converts 
Icanie dropping in slowly, one by one, at first; and a 
quiet and powerful influence has been diffusing itself 
through the islands, and filling the minds of these de- 
voted preachers with great hopes of the future. In 1867 
there were eleven male and female missionaries at the 
islands, who had organized five churches with fifty-seven 
members, and were about to establish a boarding school 
for boys and another for girls. And in 1868 Mr. Coan, 
who had just visited the islands, wrote thus : "The light, 
and love, and gravitating power of the gospel are per- 
meating the dead masses of the Marquesans. Scores 
already appear as true disciples of Jesus. Scores can 
read the Word of the living God, and it is a power within 
them. Hundreds have forsaken the tabus, and hundreds 
of others hold them lightly. Consistent missionaries and 
their teachings are respected. Their lives and persons 
are sacred where human life is no more regarded than 
that of a dog. They go secure where others dare not 
go. They leave houses, wives, and children without 
fear, and savages protect them. Everywhere we see 
evidence of the silent and sure progress of truth, and we 
rest assured that the time to favor the dark Marquesans 
has come." Whether we view the people on whom, or 
the people by whom, this power has been put forth, we 
see alike a signal movement of the gospel of Christ. 






MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 71 



CHAPTER IV. 

MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 

In a missionary point of view, Turkey is the key of 
Asia. Nowhere has the providential guidance of the 
missionary work been more remarkable. The divine 
hand has alike prepared the minds of the Armenian peo- 
ple in Turkey for Christian influences, directed attention 
thither, blessed the missionaries with wisdom, iuterposed 
continually for the protection of their work, and led them 
forward to a success already so broad and deep, as to be 
silently molding the destinies of the empire. 

The first effort of the American Board in Asia Minor 
was quite wide. of the mark. It was when, in 1826, 
Messrs. Gridley and Brewer were sent to Smyrna, the 
ancient home of Polycarp, to labor with the Greeks and 
Jews. The movement was attended with no great suc- 
cess, and the place became important chiefly as a print- 
ing station. The Mohammedans of the country mean- 
while seemed inaccessible to all direct Christian labors. 

But there was one most interesting people in the coun- 
try, signally qualified to be the recipients and almoners 
of the divine grace. It is the old Armenian race, now 
widely scattered from their native Armenia, and dispersed 
everywhere in Turkey and Persia, and found even in India, 
Russia, and Poland. There are supposed to be at least 
three millions of them, more than half of whom are said 



72 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

to be in Turkey. They are a noble race, and have been 
called " the Anglo-Saxons of the East," They are the 
active and enterprising class. Shrewd, industrious, and 
persevering, they are the bankers of Constantinople, the 
artisans of Turkey, and the merchants of Western and 
Central Asia. The nation received Christianity in the 
fourth century, and had a translation of the Scriptures 
made in the year 477 A. D., which is still extant and pro- 
foundly venerated, though now locked up, with many other 
religious works of theirs, in a dead language. 

The Armenian church is a body as marked as the Ro- 
man Catholic or Greek church, strongly resembling them 
in deaduess and formalism. Its head is the Patriarch. 
It holds to transubstantiation, invokes the saints, enforces 
confession and penance, teaches baptismal regeneration, 
priestly absolution, and the merit of good works, observes 
fourteen great feast days, one hundred and sixty-five fast 
days, and minor feasts more numerous than the days of 
the year. It has nine grades of clergy, some of whom 
are obliged to be once married, and performs all church 
services in the ancient Armenian, not one word of which 
is understood by the people. For purposes of persecu- 
tion, as well as government, the Patriarch had, until re- 
cently, almost despotic power. But there are hopeful 
features even about this fossilized church. It openly ad- 
hered to the Christian name and profession under centu- 
ries of persecution and oppression. It regards the Word 
of God with almost unexampled reverence, so that when 
the Armenian is once convinced that any proposition is 
contained in the book he has learned to kiss at the altar, 
that is to him an end of all controversy. Another hope- 
ful circumstance, directly connected with this, is that the 
errors of doctrine and practice with which the church is 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 73 

incrusted round, have never been fixed by any decree of 
council. Their standard of moral purity is also said to 
be immeasurably above that of the Turks around them, 
and they have a conscience which can be touched and 
roused. The enterprising character of the race, their 
wide dispersion, their preservation of the sentiment of 
national unity, and their acquaintance with the languages 
of the lands of their residence, render them a people of 
great promise for missionary purposes in those several 
lands. 

A singular coincidence of judgment fixed the atten- 
tion of the American Board upon this race. The mis- 
sionary Parsons, on his first visit to Jerusalem, in 1821, 
encountered some Armenian pilgrims, whose interesting 
conversation drew from him the suggestion of a mission 
to Armenia itself. " We shall rejoice," said they, " and 
all will rejoice when they arrive." Mr. Fisk soon after 
wrote from Smyrna to Boston, recommending the meas- 
ure. But before a word was heard from either, intelli- 
gent friends of the Board at home had urged the same 
proposal. At Beirut, Syria, among the earliest converts 
were the Armenian ecclesiastics (in 1826), two of whom, 
Bishop Dionysius and Krikor Vartabed, had traveled ex- 
tensively in Asia Minor, and resided once in Constanti- 
nople. These brethren assured the missionaries that the 
minds of the Armenian people were wonderfully inclined 
towards the pure gospel, and that should preachers go 
among them, doubtless thousands of them would be ready 
to receive the truth. They themselves wrote letters to 
their countrymen, which excited no little attention. 

During a dozen years or more, already, the British 
and Russian Bible Societies had put in circulation several 
thousand copies of the Scriptures in the ancient Armenian 



74 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

tongue, which were widely distributed in Turkey, and 
could be understood by the teachers and higher clergy ; 
and at length they printed the New Testament in Ar- 
meno-Turkish and modern Armenian, intelligible to all 
who could read. Another important link in the chain 
of influences was the letter of Dr. King to the Roman 
Catholics, written on leaving Syria, and stating the 
reasons why he could not be a Papist. This letter, 
translated by Bishop Dionysius, and forwarded in manu- 
script to certain prominent Armenians in Constantinople, 
produced an extraordinary effect. A meeting was held, 
its Scripture references examined, and the determination 
adopted to do something to purify the church. One im- 
mediate effect was a training school for priests. At the 
head of it was placed Peshtimaljian, a profound scholar, 
a theologian, and a humble student of the Bible — a sort 
of oriental Melanchthon, even in his timidity. For while 
steadily exerting an evangelical influence, and silently 
guiding his pupils into new paths of inquiry, he was 
alarmed when he saw them joining the evangelical move- 
ment ; and though at length he gained firmness enough to 
encourage their course, it was only on the year of his 
death that he openly declared his position. All the first 
converts at Constantinople were from his alumni. 

In 1829 the Prudential Committee prepared the way, 
by the exploring tour of Messrs. Smith and Dwight 
among the Armenians ; and two years later the noble 
Goodell began his work at Constantinople, to be fol- 
lowed in due time by the admirable band of associates, 
Dwight, Riggs, Schauffler, Schneider, Hamlin, Bliss, 
Powers, Homes, Stoddard, and others, whose names are 
as household words in the churches. Their firmness, 
fidelity, and wisdom have been the theme of frequent 






MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 75 

commendation from foreigners in public as well as in pri- 
vate life. 

The first missionaries, Goodell and Dwight, seemed 
compelled, by the circumstances of the case, to reach the 
people, at first, chiefly by means of schools and the press. 

The several translations of the Bible, — Armenian, Ar- 
meno-Turkish, Osmanli-Turkish, Hebrew-Spanish, He- 
brew-German, and finally Bulgarian, — and the various 
other books which they and their coadjutors have gradual- 
ly sent forth, till they amount to a great body of literature, 
proved in due time to be the planting of siege guns, and 
the unlimbering of heavy artillery. 

When Mr. Goodell called upon the Patriarch to seek 
his co-operation in establishing popular schools on an im- 
proved plan, that blandest of Orientals promised to send 
schoolmasters to learn the new method, and assured him 
of a love for .the missionary and his country so profound, 
that if Mr. Goodell had not come to visit him, he must 
needs have gone to America to see Mr. Goodell ! The 
one assurance meant as much as the other. The Patri- 
arch promised again and again, but never moved till he 
moved in opposition. For nearly two years the mission- 
aries gained little access to the Armenians. But God 
brought the Armenians to them. 

The dawn of hope began in January, 1833, when young 
Hohannes Der Sahagyan came to open his heart. Some 
years before his father had bought a cheap copy of the 
New Testament, which the young man read and pondered, 
and compared with the principles and practices of his 
church. Then he joined the school of Peshtimaljian, 
where his inquiries were encouraged and aided. He 
was joined by his friend Senekarim, and for two years 
and a half they were seeking and praying together for 



76 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

light, unable to grasp the great and simple doctrine of 
salvation by grace alone. At length a hostile report turned 
their attention to the missionaries, and to them they went, 
first Hohannes, and afterwards both together, saying, 
" We are in a miserable condition, and we need your 
help. We are in the fire ; put forth your hands and pull 
us out." They soon found peace in believing, and be- 
came active laborers for the truth. From that point 
there appeared tokens of the constant presence of the 
Holy Spirit among the people. Opposition was speedily 
aroused, the school broken up, and for a time the press 
was stopped at Smyrna. But the good work went on. 
The number of attendants at Mr. Goodell's weekly meet- 
ing, and of visitors at the houses of the missionaries, 
steadily increased, and their errand was to talk of the 
way of salvation. The Bible was eagerly sought for, 
and the disposition to talk on religious subjects spread 
through the city, the suburbs, and the villages on the 
Bosphorus. In every circle there were found defend- 
ers of the truth, and occasionally a sincere believer. 
An influence was abroad which Mr. Goodell character- 
ized as a " simple and entire yielding of the heart and 
life to the sole direction of God's Word and Spirit." 
Evangelical sermons began to be heard from the priests. 
The missionary force was increased. A high school 
was opened at Pera, and stations occupied at Broosa and 
Trebizond. A school for girls — a novel thing in Turkey 
— was opened at Smyrna. The missionaries steadily 
pursued the policy of disseminating the truth, without 
making attacks upon the Armenian church. Still, op- 
position was more and more aroused, but was either 
frustrated or overruled to the furtherance of the mission. 
Then the wealthy bankers of Constantinople determined 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 77 

to crush the high school. To provide a substitute, they 
founded a college in Scutari, and remodeled the national 
school in the quarter of Hass Keuy, which they com- 
mitted to the supervision of a great banker residing there. 
In breaking up the high school, the vicar who conveyed 
the message unwittingly informed the boys for the first 
time that the sign of the cross is not enjoined in the Scrip- 
tures. And when Hohannes Sahagyan was suddenly re- 
moved from his school of forty, to the amazement of all 
concerned, he was engaged by the banker of Hass Keuy 
to take charge of that school of six hundred. Every ef- 
fort was made to shake the banker's decision, but though 
he had never been known as favoring the evangelical 
cause, he was perfectly firm ; and so Sahagyan was ad- 
vanced to a post of far greater influence and freedom, 
which he held for two years with marked success. 

The year 1839 witnessed a deep-laid plot for the ex- 
pulsion of Protestantism from the land, suddenly over- 
thrown by the providence of God. The enemies of the 
mission had enlisted some of the Sultan's chief officers, 
and even gained the ear of the Sultan himself. Sahagyan 
and two other persons, a teacher and a converted priest, 
were arrested, imprisoned, and, with much personal 
cruelty, banished. The mild Armenian Patriarch was 
deposed, and his place filled by a man of violence ; bulls 
were issued by both the Greek and Armenian Patriarchs, 
prohibiting the reading or possession of all missionary 
books, and even all intercourse with the missionaries. 
Long lists of heretics were made out, and the storm 
seemed about to descend in its fury, when the hand of 
the persecutors was arrested by the hand of God. The 
rebellious Pacha of Egypt was the instrument of rescue. 
The Sultan, with his broken army, was suddenly forced 



78 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

to call on the Patriarchs for several thousand recruits. 
Then came the utter defeat of his army, the death of the 
sultan before he heard the tidings, the surrender of the 
whole Turkish fleet, the succession of the boy Abdool 
Medjid to the throne, and the threatened dissolution of 
the Turkish empire. The persecution was effectually 
stayed. By a remarkable providence, the youDg Sultan, 
unsolicited by his people, granted them a charter of civil 
protection and religious liberty. 

The commotions concerning the missionaries gave them 
publicity, and brought inquirers. In 1840 Messrs. Dwight 
and Hamlin visited Nicomedia, where, two years before, 
Mr. Dwight had found a little company of believers who 
had been led to the truth by a copy of the Dairyman's 
Daughter, and other printed tracts. While here a mer- 
chant from Adabazar was induced, by the warning letter 
of the patriarch, to come and visit them. The report 
and the tracts with which he returned to Adabazar were 
the beginning of a good work ; and when, in the follow- 
ing year, Mr. Schneider, in response to repeated invita- 
tions, visited the place, he found there already a little 
band of converted men. In 1843 a young Armenian, 
who had embraced and renounced Mohammedanism, was 
publicly beheaded in the streets of Constantinople. But 
this event became the occasion on which the English 
ambassador, supported by the ministers of France, Prus- 
sia, and Austria, extorted from the sultan a written pledge 
that no person thenceforward should be persecuted for his 
religious opinions. The British ambassador declared the 
transaction to be little less than a miracle. And though 
the pledge has been often evaded and violated in prac- 
tice, it stands as a great landmark in the religious history 
of the empire. The Patriarch himself, two years later, 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 79 

made a fixed attempt to violate this guaranty, which 
redounded speedily to the establishment of the faith. 
He issued a sentence of excommunication against all 
adherents of the new doctrines, which was accompanied 
by scenes of shocking violence in the chief cities of the 
empire. Christians were stoned in the streets, unjustly 
imprisoned, ejected from their shops, invaded and plun- 
dered in their houses, bastinadoed, and abandoned by their 
friends. It marked an era in their history. For after 
meekly and nobly enduring this protracted abuse, they 
were, by the resolute efforts of the foreign ambassadors, 
headed by Sir Stratford Canning, taken forever from 
under the patriarch's jurisdiction, and organized into a 
separate Protestant community. On the 1st of July, 
1846, was formed at Constantinople the first Evangelical 
Armenian church in Turkey, with a native pastor ; and 
during that summer similar churches were formed in 
Nicomedia, Adabazar, and Trebizond. 

The enemy had overdone his work. The excommuni- 
cation was a blunder ; for it founded four Protestant 
churches the first year. And the previous measures had 
been equally blundering. For, remarkable as was the 
spirit of inquiry among the Armenians, it had been 
vastly increased by the measures taken to put it down. 
The enemies of a pure gospel had done an immense 
amount of gratuitous advertising almost from the first. 
The Romish Patriarch had (in 1836) tried his hand 
at a public denunciation of the missionaries and their 
books. Four years later, the Armenian Patriarch had 
issued a " bull," followed in a fortnight by a bull from 
the Greek Patriarch, both of the same description, and 
by an imperial firman apparently re-enforcing them, 
and in another six weeks by still another Armenian 



80 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

bull, with terrific anathemas. A Patriarchal letter had 
been sent to Trebizond in 1840; and in January, 1846, 
two successive and still more furious anathemas had 
been issued by the Patriarch in his official character, 
w T ith the lights extinguished, and a vail before the altar, 
whereby the adherents of the new gospel were " ac- 
cursed, excommunicated, and anathematized by God, 
and by all his saints, and by us." They were printed, 
and sent to all the churches. For six months continu- 
ously was this anathema kept dinning every Sabbath in 
the ears of the faithful, till cursing grew stale. The final 
excision that year (July) was read in all the Armenian 
churches. 

So much thundering sent many flashes of light through 
the dark. The Patriarch had better facilities for adver- 
tising than the missionaries. He unquestionably sent 
them a multitude of inquirers. Thus his letter of warn- 
ing brought the merchant of Adabazar to Messrs. Dwight 
and Hamlin at Nicomedia for information ; and he it 
was who carried back the Testament and tracts that 
began the good work there. Many an inquirer came 
to ascertain personally of the missionaries whether the 
stories were true that the Americans were a nation of 
infidels, without church or worship. 

When the Patriarch had hurried Bedros, the vartabed, 
out of the city for his Protestant tendencies, the vartabed 
had gone distributing books and preaching throughout 
the whole region of Aleppo and Aintab. TVhen he had 
sent priest Vartanes a prisoner to the monastery of Ma- 
rash, and then banished him to Cesarea, Vartanes had 
first awakened the monks, and then preached the gospel 
all the way to Cesarea. 

The missionaries wisely availed themselves of this 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 81 

rising interest, in tours for preaching, .conversing, and 
distributing religious treatises. Messrs. Powers, John- 
ston, Van Lennep, Smith, Peabody, Schneider, Go'odell, 
Everett, Benjamin, pushed forth to Aintab, Aleppo, 
Broosa, Harpoot, Sivas, Diarbekir, Arabkir, Cesarea, 
and various other places, through the empire. 

They soon found that they were in the midst of one of 
the most extraordinary religious movements of modern 
times, silent, and sometimes untraceable, but potent and 
pervasive. In every important town of the empire, 
where there were Armenians, there were found to be, as 
early as 1849, one or more " lovers of evangelical truth." 
But it was no causeless movement. The quiet working 
of the " little leaven " was traceable almost from its 
source by indubitable signs. It was a notable sight to 
see, when, in 1838, the vartabed and leading men of Orta 
Keuy, on the Bosphorus, where the missionaries first 
gained access to the Armenians, went and removed the 
pictures from the village church. It was a notable thing 
to hear, when, in 1841, the Armenian preachers of 
Constantinople were discoursing on repentance and the 
mediatorial office of Christ. It was another landmark, 
when, in 1842, the fervor of the converts not only filled 
the city with rumors of the new doctrines, but, after a 
season of special prayer, held in a neighboring valley, 
sent forth Priest Vartanes on a missionary tour into the 
heart of Asia Minor. A still more significant fact it 
was, when, in that year and the next, the Armenian 
women were effectually reached and roused, till family 
worship began in many a household, and a Female Sem- 
inary at Pera became (in 1845) a necessity. The breth- 
ren had observed the constant increase of inquirers, often 
from a distance, and they had found, even in 1843, such 



82 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

a demand for their books as the press at Smyrna was 
unable full) 7 to supply. In many places, as at Nicoinedia, 
Adabazar, and Aintab, books and tracts began the work. 
The preaching services at Constantinople would be 
occasionally attended by individuals from four or five 
other towns, and at Erzroom one Sabbath (February, 
1846) there were attendants from six different places. 
The Seminary for young men at Bebek (a suburb of 
Constantinople) drew visitors from great distances, and 
from all quarters, as far as Alexandria, St. Petersburg, 
and the Euphrates. The native brethren also had been 
engaged in disseminating the truth, and the first awaken- 
ings at Killis, Kessab, and Rodosto, for example, were 
due to their labors. And thus, though the movement 
rolled on at last with great power and speed, the prep- 
aration had been long and broad. Yet not without 
abundant and fierce opposition. Indeed, the resistance 
was so common, sooner or later, that it gives only a 
glimpse at the facts, to tell how, even at Constantinople, 
the brethren and one of the missionaries were once pelted 
with stones ; how the little band at Nicoinedia were at 
times compelled to hold their worship, somewhat like 
the early Christians and the Covenanters, in distant 
fields, and even after religious liberty was proclaimed, 
were abused in the streets, and had their houses stoned ; 
how, at Adabazar, a Protestant teacher was put in chains 
and in prison ; how at Trebizond the very women at- 
tacked with stones two of their own sex, as they returned 
from the preaching, and the husbands who protected 
their own wives were thrown into prison and the stocks, 
like Paul and Silas of old ; how the mob at Erzroom 
burst into the house of Dr. Smith, and destroyed his 
books and furniture ; and how, in 1847, Mr. Johnston 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 83 

was expelled from Aintab by the governor, and stoned out 
of town by Armenian school-boys and teachers, although 
the very next year Aintab became the seat of a church 
that grew with singular rapidity, and a great centre of 
"Christian activity. These things died out only by de- 
grees ; not until after the Sultan had issued his firmans, 
first (in 1850) placing the Protestants on the same basis 
with other Christian communities ; and again (in 1853) 
placing his Christian subjects on the same level with 
Mohammedans before the law ; and yet once more (in 
1856) granting full " freedom of conscience and of re- 
ligious profession ; " not until long after three Patriarchs, 
Stepan, Hagopos, and Matteos, had tried each to outdo 
his predecessor in severity, and the third of them had 
(in 1848) been deposed for financial frauds. 

It was in the year 1849 that the missionaries, with 
five native pastors ordained already, and with the clear 
recognition of the broad fields now white for the harvest, 
adopted a Report, setting forth to the native Christians 
the great duty of supporting their pastors and religious 
institutions, relieving the missionaries for other fields, 
and themselves engaging " in the further extension of the 
truth." Next year they turned and asked the home 
churches for twelve more missionaries, to oversee this 
wonderful uprfsing. For several years in succession the 
Board repeated the call for " twelve more missionaries." 
For two years six only answered. " From every part of 
the land," wrote Mr. Dwight, in 1853, " there comes to 
us one appeal, ' Send us preachers, send us preachers ; ' " 
and Mr. Schneider wrote home, " I almost fear to have 
the post arrive." Six other laborers responded in 1854 ; 
and next year came the urgent call for " seventeen," to 
meet the great emergency. 



84: SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

The Crimean war for three or four years agitated the 
nation and the nations. But the spiritual reformation 
rolled on ; it was a mightier and a deeper force. It was 
impossible for the missionaries to keep pace with the 
calls. The wonder is, that they could accomplish so' 
much as they did. At one time (1855) they hurried five 
young students into the ministry before their studies were 
completed. But they felt and wrote that they were losing 
opportunities all the time. And they were right. Hu- 
manly speaking, it seemed as though with a sufficient 
missionary force the Armenian element of Turkey could 
have been carried everywhere by storm. 

From this time forth the enterprise became too broad 
even to trace in this rapid way. If the whole movement 
shall ever be suitably recorded, the history of this ref- 
ormation will be second in interest to no other that ever 
has been written. There are scores and scores of villages, 
each of which would furnish materials for a volume ; and 
multitudes of cases that recall the fervor, faith, and for- 
titude of apostolic times. Let us hope that they may 
find their adequate historian. For the present we can 
only refer to the contemporary pages of the Missionary 
Herald. 

The breadth of the movement began also to demand 
new missionary centres. The book depository, which 
had been on the north side of the Golden Horn, planted 
itself boldly (1855) in the heart of Constantinople ; and 
six or eight boxes of books might be seen at a time, 
marked to " Diarbekir," " Arabkir," " Cesarea," " Ain- 
tab," and so on. The Seminary proved inadequate to 
the demand for preachers and teachers, and the organiza- 
tion of other seminaries about this time at Tokat and 
Aintab, indicated the time as no* distant when there 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 85 

should be three missions, instead of one, in Asiatic Turkey. 
Indeed, Mr. Dunraore was writing, in 1857, that " forty 
men" were needed at once, as teachers and preachers 
around Plarpoot ; and Dr. Hamlin was urgently pressing 
the wants of the Bulgarians in European Turkey. 

One of the most delightful instances of Christian mag- 
nanimity was displayed in England about this time. The 
financial troubles of 1857 in America had embarrassed 
the Board, and threatened serious embarrassment to this 
mission. Noble Christians in England, of all Evangeli- 
cal communions, including ministers of the Church of 
England, came at once to the rescue. They formed the 
" Turkish Missions Aid Society," invited Dr. D wight to 
present our cause in England, and raised money thence- 
forward, not to found missions of their own in Turkey, 
but to aid ours. At an anniversary of the Society in 
1860, the Earl of Shaftesbury crowned this magnanimity 
of deeds by an equal magnanimity of words. He said 
of our missionaries in Turkey, " I do not believe that in 
the whole history of missions, I do not believe that in the 
history of diplomacy, or in the history of any negotiation 
carried on between man and man, we can find anything 
to equal the wisdom, the soundness, and the pure Evan- 
gelical truth of the men who constitute the American 
mission. I have said it twenty times before, and I will 
say it again, > — for the expression appropriately conveys 
my meaning, — that they are a marvelous combination 
of common sense and piety." 

At this point, the enterprise, like a Banyan tree, 
changed its branches into new roots, and henceforth was 
reported as the Western, Central, and Eastern Turkey 
missions. The main feature of interest became that of 
sure but gradual growth. 



86 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

The Western Turkey mission-field covers a region of 
singular historic interest. It includes alike the field of 
Troy and of the "Seven Churches." It probably saw 
the origin both of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and of the 
Apocalypse and the fourth Gospel. In its north-western 
portion flows the little river Granicus, where Alexander 
first defeated the Persian armies, and in its south-western 
part lies the once world-renowned seaport of Miletus, 
where Paul made his affecting speech to the elders who 
had come from Ephesus, that seat of the marvelous tem- 
ple of Diana, and of the church of the " Ephesians." 
The poor little village of Isnik, too small for a mission 
station, is all that remains of the Nicasa, famous for the 
Nicene Creed, framed in a council where Constantine 
presided — a city long the bulwark of Constantinople 
against the Turks, then the capital of the Sultan Solyman, 
and afterwards retaken by the first crusaders. The centre 
of missionary operations is the great city of unparalleled 
site and matchless harbor, rebuilt by Constantine, the 
object of six captures, and more than twenty sieges, the 
ignis fatuus that turned the first Napoleon towards Mos- 
cow rather than St. Petersburg, the long-coveted treasure 
of the Russian czars, and the place of five great Chris- 
tian councils. Broosa, another of our stations, is at the 
ancient capital of the Ottoman empire ; and its castle is 
said to commemorate the time and the work of Hannibal 
the Carthaginian. Nicomedia, still another statiou, was 
once the capital of the Bithynian kings, the home of Dio- 
cletian when he ruled the Eastern empire, and the place 
where poison ended the life of Hannibal. One of the 
stations last occupied, Manissa, is the old Magnesia, 
where the two Scipios defeated Antiochus the Great, and 
won for Rome the empire of the East. 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 87 

In this region, covered thick with historic associations, 
the twenty-four churches, with their thousand members, 
their twenty-nine pastors and licensed preachers, and their 
forty-five hundred enrolled Protestants, only indicate the 
deep under-current of influence now at work. A con- 
siderable body of missionaries are still furnishing the ori- 
ginal forces. The press pours forth some fifty thousand 
volumes and thirty thousand tracts a year, in six different 
languages, including the English. Two " Evangelical 
Unions " of native churches and pastors have been formed, 
and the churches contribute already to Christian objects 
four thousand dollars a year. A theological seminary, 
and a ladies' boarding-school, now at Marsovan ; two other 
girls' schools ; training classes at Broosa and Sivas ; Ro- 
bert College, the indirect child of the mission, now looking 
out conspicuously over the Bosphorus, with its hundred 
and eighty students of seventeen different nationalities ; 
and last, not least, a band of lady missionaries finding 
their way into the homes and hearts of their sisters, — 
these are some of the influences unfalteringly at work in 
the heart of the Turkish empire. 

The Central Turkey mission numbers among its thirty 
stations and out-stations Antioch, the old " Queen of the 
East," long the chief city of Asia, if not of the world, 
then the residence of Syrian kings, and afterwards of 
Roman governors, the place where " the disciples were 
first called Christians;" Aleppo, which succeeded Pal- 
myra in the trade between Europe and the East, still the 
commercial centre of Northern Syria ; Oorfa, a traditional 
" Ur of the Chaldees ; " and Tarsus, where Paul was 
born, and Alexander nearly died. Here twenty-two 
churches comprise eighteen hundred members, and aver- 
age congregations of more than five thousand persons, 



88 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

with eight thousand registered Protestants. A theologi- 
cal seminary, with thirty-seven students, at Marash ; 
two female seminaries ; eighteen hundred and forty com- 
municants in twenty-two churches, some of which carry 
all their own expenses, while the whole body contribute 
six thousand dollars in gold for Christian charities ; eight 
thousand registered Protestants ; nineteen pastors and 
preachers ; an Evangelical Union, courageous enough to 
plan a Christian college, and to gain pledges from their 
own churches of nine thousand dollars for the purpose ; 
a strong staff of lady missionaries working most hopefully 
among their sex ; and a general diffusion of light among 
both Armenians and Mohammedans, which no figures 
can display, — indicate a hold of the gospel in this region 
so strong as to raise the question of " closing up the proper 
missionary work in Central Turkey at no distant day." 
An amount and variety of active Christian effort has been 
put forth here, and a long-continued religious agitation 
awakened from such centres as Aintab and Marash, 
■which no one can understand, except as he traces back 
the letters of the missionaries for the last fifteen years. 
The history of all the commotions at Aintab, from the 
time when Mr. Johnston was stoned out of town to the 
time when it has become the seat of two self-supporting 
churches, with native pastors and near five hundred mem- 
bers, surrounded by a cluster of thirteen out-stations, 
containing nearly four hundred more church members, 
would require a volume. The whole course and working 
of the mission are far too remarkable to be dismissed in 
this summary way. There is a wide-spread expectation 
of a coming change, of which the two hundred and twenty 
members admitted to the churches during the last year 
are but the few drops before the shower. 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 89 

The Eastern Turkey mission deserves special mention 
for the method and rapidity of its achievements. Coming 
later, for the most part, than the other divisions of the 
Turkish missions, it was enabled to build on their foun- 
dation and profit by their experience. Its methods have 
been largely the same which were employed in Turkey 
from the beginning, and specially and powerfully developed 
in the central mission, but perhaps still more concen- 
trated here. We have also the advantage of a very full 
narration from the chief actors in the scene. Their vigor- 
ous and invigorating work, novel not so much in con- 
ception as in execution, bids fair to mark an epoch in the 
history of missions. The territory includes, at Mosul, 
the site of Nineveh, and in ancient Armenia, probably 
the cradle of the human race. The gospel is carried to 
thfc region of " the Fall." One portion of this terri- 
tory, the Harpoot mission field, has been the scene of a 
most interesting and remarkable experiment. About 
fourteen years ago, Messrs. Wheeler and Allen, with 
their wives, entered on this field, followed in two years 
by Mr. Barnum, his wife, and Miss West. The region 
committed to them was somewhat larger than Massa- 
chusetts, containing twenty-five hundred villages, and 
a population of five hundred thousand persons. These 
brethren went with the determination to introduce a self- 
supporting, self-propagating religion ; to offer Chris- 
tianity U as a leaven," and not as a " leavened loaf; " to 
confer privileges which in the reception should test the 
self-denial of the recipient. They adhered to three funda- 
mental, and, as they thought, apostolical principles : First, 
to " ordain elders in every church," giving a pastor from 
among the people to every church at its formation ; 
Second, to leave each church to choose its own pastor, 



90 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

make its own pecuniary engagements with him, and 
assume the responsibility of fulfilment. Temporary aid 
might be granted, to the amount of one half the salary, 
to be reduced each year, and in five years to cease. The 
third principle was to make the churches at once inde- 
pendent of missionary control. 

These points were not carried without a hard struggle, 
and often bitter opposition. It took seven years to bring 
the church at Harpoot up to the entire support of its 
pastor. All their firmness, patience, ingenuity, and en- 
ergy were taxed to the utmost ; but they carried it, and 
the next three were made self-supporting more easily 
than that one. They determined in like manner to do 
for the people in all respects only just what would enable 
them to do for themselves. They put upon them nearly 
the whole cost of their church edifices. In their schools 
they taught no English, to tempt their young men into 
foreign employments. They insisted that their converts, 
even those who pointed to their gray hair in remonstrance, 
should learn to read the Bible, and that those who had 
learned should go and teach others, especially their wives. 
After the schools were fairly under way they threw the 
support of them upon the natives. Their books, the 
Scriptures included, they made it a rule to sell at some 
price, but never to give away. Almost "without excep- 
tion those who bought books were first taught to read 
them ; and the main dependence has been on the Bible — 
read, preached, and sung. The sacred volume itself, 
without the living preacher, has, in frequent instances, 
borne blessed fruit. Thus, in the village of Bizmishen, 
" thief" Maghak bought a Bible, learned to read it, 
became an honest man and Christian, and established 
public worship with a good chapel and the nucleus of a 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 91 

little church in his village. Another Bible, sold by him, 
gathered an audience of thirty men and women at Na- 
jaran, forty miles away, to hear the Bible read and ex- 
plained. In another instance, a colporteur, spending the 
night at Perchenj, found seventy men assembled in a 
stable, listening to one who was reading the Bible. 
Messrs. Wheeler and Barn um visited the place, spent a 
Sabbath, and sent them a teacher. A revival followed, 
and in two years the little church numbered forty mem- 
bers, with twenty-one hopeful converts, and a native 
pastor settled over them, and owned a chapel and a 
parsonage. These brethren, self-moved, organized a mis- 
sionary society to go, two and two, into the neighboring 
villages, to explain and sell the Bible. Two of them 
entered Hooeli, a village where the missionaries had re- 
peatedly and vainly endeavored to gain a foothold. They 
prayed as they went, " O Lord, give us open doors and 
hearts." Their prayer was answered. The villagers 
applied to the missionaries for a teacher ; but as none 
could be had, the men of Perchenj sent one of their own 
number to begin the w r ork. Soon after, a seminary stu- 
dent went to spend his summer vacation there, and a mob 
pitched him and his effects into the street. But the 
leaven was working. A place of worship, holding three 
hundred persons, was erected ; schools were opened to 
learn the Bible ; a blessed awakening came, attended 
with forty or fifty conversions, including some of the most 
hopeless cases in the village ; and at the last information 
they were about to organize a church, and to settle and 
support as pastor one of the men who first came with the 
Bible and a prayer to God for a hearing. 

Such is the nature of the work. Every church and 
every community of Bible readers has a Bible society, 



92 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

that sends forth its books in bags on the backs of donkeys ;' 
and the churches send forth their members, two by two. 
for days and weeks together, in the home missionary 
work. The community of Haupoot had thirty-five mem- 
bers thus engaged at one time. They are also prosecuting 
a " Foreign Missionary " enterprise in a region extending 
from four to twenty days' journey to the south. This 
movement is aided by the theological students in their 
long vacation — the seminary being founded on the prin- 
ciple of accustoming students to pastoral work while 
pursuing their studies. These young men are trained to 
be Bible men and practical men. When on one occasion 
they were found to be above doing some necessary manual 
labor at the seminary, they were brought to their senses 
by a reduction of their beneficiary aid. 

The persevering and often amusing methods by which 
a penurious people have been made generous and self- 
sacrificing, and the modes in which the missionaries have 
persisted in doing the work, not of mere educators, nor 
even of pastors, but of Christian missionaries, infusing 
the " leaven," must be learned from Mr. Wheeler's book, 
" Ten Years on the Euphrates." It is as brimful of in- 
struction for the home field as the foreign. Would that 
many of the home churches might be brought up to the 
same level. 

So thoroughly has the spirit of independent action been 
infused into these churches, that, in 1865, they organized 
themselves into an " Evangelical Union," with a thorough 
system of Christian activity, Bible distribution, Education 
Society, Home and Foreign Missions, and church erec- 
tion. The fruits are yet largely in the future — we may 
hope, in the near future. The missionaries are already 
feeling that the time is not distant when they can leave 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 93 

this field for another. Already is their work represented 
by eighteen churches, — ten of them entirely indepen- 
dent, — by seventy out-stations, by a hundred and twelve 
native preachers, pastors, and other helpers, " by thou- 
sands of men and women reading the word of God, and 
by thousands more of children and youth gathered into 
schools ; in a word, by the foundations of a Christian 
civilization laid upon a sure basis in the affections of an 
earnest, self-sacrificing, Christian community." 

Many outward tokens begin to show the silent power 
of this mission. In Harpoot city and its seventy out- 
stations, in which years ago were two hundred and fifty- 
six priests, there were in 1867 but one hundred and 
forty-five. The revenue of the monasteries is passing 
away. The monastery of Hukalegh, which once collected 
three hundred measures of wheat from that village and 
Bizmishen, then collected but eighteen. The cause of 
temperance is advanced ; believers spontaneously leave 
off wine-drinking. A wonderful elevation has taken 
place in the character and position of woman. " How 
happens it," said a man one day to Mr. Wheeler, " that 
all the missionaries' wives are angels?" But now, says 
Mr. Wheeler, " some of them there have angels too for 
their companions." One of the most blessed fruits of the 
gospel is seen in its effects on the family circle. These 
believers " are as careful to maintain secret, family, and 
social prayer as Christians in this land, and the last more 
so." The Sabbath is carefully and conscientiously kept 
by them. And in their Christian liberality they seem to 
be an example to the best churches of this country. 

The Eastern Turkey mission, of which Harpoot is a 
principal station, now occupies one hundred and six out- 
stations, and has twenty-eight churches, containing a 



94 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

thousand members, with average congregations of fifty- 
five hundred persons. Nearly, if not quite, half the 
churches are self-supporting. Twenty-seven native pas- 
tors and twenty-three licensed preachers are dispensing 
the gospel, and sixty-two young men are now training 
for the ministry. The Evangelical Union is maintain- 
ing four missionary stations among the mountains of 
Koordistan. 

In glancing over the present religious aspect of Asiatic 
Turkey, it is impossible not to feel that the seeds of great 
events have been widely sown. Seventy-four churches, 
with four thousand members, an average attendance of 
fourteen thousand persons, and about twenty thousand 
registered Protestants ; a hundred native preachers, occu- 
pying more than twice that number of places, scattered 
through the empire, who have received five hundred 
members in the year just passed ; a hundred and forty- 
three young men on their way to the ministry-; four 
Evangelical Unions, apparently able to carry on the 
Lord's work, were every missionary taken away by the 
providence of God ; a Christian press, pouring forth 
ten million pages in a year ; a general spirit of inquiry 
through the empire ; — all are tokens of changes, if not 
of revolutions, in Turkey, which even this generation may 
look upon with wonder. Pie that is wise will watch the 
course of events. 

It is several years since Layard, the English explorer, 
could testify that there was scarcely a town of importance 
in Turkey without a Protestant community. And now 
we have a remarkable voice from within. Hagop Effeu- 
di, the civil head of the Protestant community, has recent- 
ly made a tour of observation through the empire, at the 
charge of the sultan. In his report he declares that 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 95 

" those who have become Protestant in principle far ex- 
ceed in number the registered Protestants, and those 
who are willing to avow themselves such. The in- 
direct influence of Protestantism has been greater and 
healthier than what is apparent. The fact that eighty- 
five per cent, of the adults in the [Protestant] community 
can read, speaks greatly in favor of its members. Any 
one acquainted with the social condition and religious 
ideas of the Oriental people, who will take paius to com- 
pare them with the liberal institutions introduced, can 
readily imagine the state of society which must neces- 
sarily follow such a change. I should hardly do justice 
were I to pass without noticing the strictly sober habits 
of our people. The use of strong drink is very seldom 
found and habitual drunkenness is very rarely known. I 
was gratified to find everywhere a great improvement in 
domestic relations as compared with the condition of 
families before they became Protestants. I need not 
weary our friends with details to show the effect of the 
healthy influence of the various Protestant institutions — 
such as Sabbath schools, social prayer-meetings, women's 
meetings, and the little philanthropic associations coming 
into existence with the advance of Protestantism. The 
noble institutions and liberal organizations which have 
been introduced among this people are yet in their in- 
fancy ; and their power of elevating the individual man, 
in his moral and intellectual capacities, is not so apparent 
in the unsettled state of affairs which of necessity follows 
such a mighty social and religious revolution ; but they 
are objects of great interest and a source of great en- 
couragement to every close observer of the course of 
affairs, even in the very confusion which is produced by 
them." 



96 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

In a recent letter to Secretary Clark, he makes the 
following interesting statements : — 

" The most zealous advocate of American civilization 
could not have done half as much for his country abroad 
as the missionary has done. The religious and social 
organizations, the various institutions introduced, are 
doing a great deal in introducing American civilization. 
From the wild mountains of Gaour Dagh, in Cilicia, you 
may go across to the no less wild mountains of Bhotan, 
on the borders of Persia ; or you may take Antioch if 
you please, and go on any line to the black shores of the 
Euxine ; you will certainly agree with me in declaring 
that the American missionary has served his country no 
less than his Master. Even in wild Kurdistan you will 
find some one who can reason with you quite in Yankee 
style, can make you a speech which you cannot but own 
to be substantially Yankee, with Yankee idioms and 
American examples to support his arguments ; and if 
you want to satisfy your curiosity still more, you may 
pay your visit to the schools established by the mis- 
sionaries in the wild mountains of the Turkomans, in 
Kurdistan, the plains of Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, or 
Bithynia. Question the school-boy as you would at 
home ; you will find his answers quite familiar to you. 
You may question him on geography, and you will cer- 
tainly find, to your surprise - , that he knows more of the 
United States than perhaps of his own native country. 
Question him about social order, he will tell you all men 
are created equal. Indeed, what Dr. Hamlin is silently 
doing with his Robert College, and the American mission- 
ary with his Theological Seminary and school-boohs, all 
European diplomatists united cannot overbalance. Having 
seen all this, you will certainly not be astonished if you 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY. 97 

see Yankee clocks ; American chairs, tables, organs ; 
American agricultural implements ; Yankee cotton-gins, 
saw-mills, sewiug-machines ; American flowers in the 
very heart of Kurdistan ; Yankee saddles, and a Yankee 
rider on the wild mountains of Asia' Minor, perhaps sing- 
ing, with his native companion, some familiar tune. Be 
not surprised if you be invited to a prayer-meeting on 
these mountains, where you hear the congregation singing 
Old Hundred, as heartily as you have ever heard it at 
home. You will certainly own then, if you have not be- 
fore, that the American people have a sacred interest in 
this country." 

The P^uropean Turkey mission, separately organized 
in 1871, just as the Western Turkey mission was sur- 
rendered to another Board, and using Constantinople as 
its centre of publication, deserves a few words, by reason 
of its prospective importance. The country was ex- 
plored, and a small beginning made, as long ago as 1858. 
In that year Mr. Morse entered Adrianople ; but his 
books and two thousand copies of the Turkish Testament 
were seized by the authorities. When, on remonstrance 
of the British and American consuls, the Porte ordered 
the surrender of the books, the desponding utterance of 
the Turkish officials was well worthy of notice : " If it is 
the will of God that the Bible prevail, let his will be 
done." 

The mission is directed primarily not to Turks, but to 
Bulgarians, a people numbering perhaps five or six mil- 
lions. They belong to the Slavonic race, and nominally 
to the Greek church. They are a pastoral people, neat, 
amiable, and industrious, but uneducated and uninquir- 
ing. Early attempts to awaken their interest were un- 
successful and discouraging. But with the continuance 



98 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

of these efforts, the intrusion of macadamized roads, 
railways, and civilization, a change has taken place. 
Education begins to be prized, and forty young Bul- 
garians are in Robert college. Everything is now in 
readiness for a vigo'rous campaign, if the Christian sol- 
diers can be found. The field is thoroughly explored. 
The strong points are designated, and three stations 
occupied. A complete Bulgarian Bible — the fruit of 
Mr. Riggs's twelve years' toil — is ready ; and there is 
a wide-spread desire to obtain it. A few converts are 
scattered here and there, and a youug and active church 
is just organized. Two other hopeful signs are seen : The 
spirit of persecution has been awakened at Yamboul ; 
and at Bansko an earnest written demand for light in the 
Greek church itself — for elevation of the schools, for the 
observance of the Sabbath, for religious services in the 
language of the people, and " that the teachings of the 
gospel be preached." 

Here everything seems now ready for the sickle. If 
the laborers can but be. furnished, and the enterprise 
pushed as the greatness of the opportunity requires, we 
may well watch, and pray, and hope for cheering re- 
sults. It is a mission on which to look with an intelli- 
gent interest, for itself and for its relations. 



THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 99 



CHAPTER V. 

THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 

The interest which attaches to the Syrian mission is 
peculiar. It does not rest, as in some other fields, upon 
greatness of outward results, or rapidity of achievement, 
but on the formidableness of the obstacles surmounted, 
the pertinacity of the struggle, and the greatness of the 
stake. Syria has well been called the romance land of 
missions. 

In population, Syria is not a great country ; it has now- 
only about one million nine hundred thousand inhabitants. 
But it is the key to the Arabic-speaking portion of the 
race. The Arabic Bible can utter its message to at least 
a hundred and twenty millions of people, spread through 
Barbary, Nubia, Arabia, Persia, Iudia, Tartary, to the 
Philippine Islands on the north-east, and to Central 
Africa on the south-west. The Scriptures from the Syr- 
ian press have been sold on the borders of Liberia, and 
to the Mohammedans in Bombay. The Syrian mission, 
if thoroughly successful, places itself, as it were, in con- 
tact with one tenth part of the human family. 

Of Arabs by descent (not merely in speech), there are 
supposed to be some forty or fifty millions in the world. 
They are a very noble race. We are not to think of 
them only in the guise of the shriveled and fiery Bedouin 
who howls around the traveler for " bakhshish," or hovers 



100 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

about his pathway with matchlock and spear. That 
fleshless and scowling robber is the wild offshoot of the 
race whose renown once filled the world. It is the stock 
of Omar, and Saladin, and Haroun al Raschid. His 
ancestors swept in military triumph from the banks of 
the Indus to the heights of the Pyrenees, and in their 
decadence fought even-handed with the hosts of Philip 
Augustus and Richard Plantagenet. They made Bagdad 
for five hundred years the seat of incredible wealth and 
luxury in the East, and for the same length of time, 
Cordova the Athens of the West. They filled Southern 
Spain with the graces of oriental architecture, and during 
the " dark ages " of Europe, made that region a circle 
of light. There they gathered the treasures of science 
from Armenia, Syria, Egypt, and Constantinople. Seventy 
public libraries illuminated the cities of the Andalusian 
kingdom, and illustrious professors attracted students 
from all Western Europe. A long and brilliaut history 
has proved the capacity of the Arab race. The Arab 
of Syria, however illiterate and ignorant, carries with 
him a native dignity of address and deportment unsur- 
passed by the highest culture of civilized lands. 

But while the Arabic tongue is the general language 
of Syria, and Mohammedanism the prevailing religion, 
comparatively few of the inhabitants are of the pure 
Arab stock. They are, with the exception of a few 
Jews, Turks, and Armenians, a mixed race, descended 
largely from the ancient Syrians, with a considerable 
mixture of Arabian blood imported by the followers of 
the caliphs. The eye of the traveler is caught by a 
variety of costumes, from that of the city gentleman, with 
his flowing robes, yellow slippers, red overshoes, and 
faultless white turban, down to that of the Bedouin of 



THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 101 

tbe desert, with his simple calico shirt, and hufiyeh 
bound about his head by a strand of camel's hair. Be- 
neath all outward diversities lies a still more complicated 
division of religious sects, offering, separately and unit- 
edly, powerful obstacles to the spread of the gospel. 
Here are Mohammedans, some eight hundred and fifty 
thousand, the mass of the people, including the Sunnites, 
or Traditionists, and the Shiites, or followers of Ali, to- 
gether with the Ansairiyeh and the Metawileh. Here 
are Kurds, Yezidees, and Gypsies. Only about fifteen 
thousaud Jews are found in all Syria, including Palestine 
(five thousand more than in Chicago), of whom four 
fifths, chiefly foreigners, reside at Safet, Hebron, Tibe- 
rias, and Jerusalem. Here are the Druzes, a powerful 
body, with a creed long undiscoverable. And there are 
many sects nominally Christian, — the Greek church, the 
most influential body, having two patriarchs and a hun- 
dred and fifty thousand members ; the Maronites, the 
most numerous sect, comprising two hundred thousand 
persons ; Jacobites, Armenians, Greek Catholics, and 
Syrian Catholics. The Moslems were found as corrupt 
in their principles and morals as they were fierce in their 
religion, and when the missionaries arrived, were sus- 
tained by the death-penalty for a change of faith. The 
nominal Christians of all sects, equally low in morality, 
and formalists in religion, were despised by the Moham- 
medans for their picture-worship and Mariolatry, while 
not behind in the disposition, and formerly in the power, 
to persecute. The Druzes, ferocious in war, though 
hospitable in peace, are bound together by secret obliga- 
tions so strong and so unscrupulous, that, unless quite 
recently, not more than three or four are known to have 
been effectually reached by the gospel. And the Jews, 



102 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

in addition to their proverbial bigotry, are dependent on 
foreign Israelites for support, and are thus by their daily 
bread pledged to resist the truth. But in the midst of 
this thick-ribbed ice the fire was hopefully kindled, and 
in spite of every species of extinguisher has been made 
to burn. As to method, indeed, man has proposed, but 
God has disposed. The Board originally had the Jews 
prominently in mind, Jerusalem as the centre o£ opera- 
tions, and Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk, as at first, their 
chief agents. Yet thus far almost nothing has been 
done there directly for the Jews. Jerusalem, after a 
lingering experiment, was given up to others, and Par- 
sons and Fisk were early removed by the hand of Provi- 
dence. Mr. Parsons reached Jerusalem in February, 
1821, barely surveyed his field, and suggested the mis- 
sion to the Armenians of Turkey, when, in June, he was 
driven away by failing health, weeping as he turned to 
take his last look of the Holy City ; and two years later 
he died at Alexandria, where every trace of his grave, 
as well as of the memorial of affection erected to his 
memory, has long been obliterated by the monks. 
Another year his friend Fisk, who pressed his dying 
hand, and " kissed his quivering lips," approached the 
city with the memories of Parsons crowding upon his 
heart. Two years of ardent labor in Jerusalem, Bei- 
rut, and other parts of Syria ended his earthly career. 
With a mind full of expansive schemes, a vigorous 
working power, a nobly balanced character, and a fa- 
cility of scholarship, whereby he could preach in French, 
Italian, Arabic, and Greek, he, too, passed away in per- 
fect peace. In his last hours at Beirut he dictated let- 
ters of hope and good cheer to his father and his mis- 
sionary frieuds King and Temple, called for the hymn 



THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 103 

he had sung alone at the grave of Parsons, and while 
Bird and Goodell sat by his pillow, and caught his last 
words, the Arabs wept around, and men of different 
nationalities followed him to the grave in tears. So was 
accomplished the prayer recorded in the written covenaut 
of Fisk and Parsons in America that they two might be 
" in death not far divided." 

Mr. Fisk had early marked Beirut as a centre of 
missionary operations, and by his plans and his re- 
searches in the country had done much to give a hopeful 
character to the mission. The missionary friends Bird 
and Goodell, who soothed his last hours, had established 
the station at Beirut in the autumn of 1823, the year in 
which he followed Parsons to Jerusalem. Beirut is a 
city of sixty thousand, though then of less than twenty 
thousand inhabitants, lying under the shadow of Mount 
Lebanon, and perched upon a bold promontory that pro- 
jects three miles into the sea, the solid central mass of 
buildings being fringed with beautiful villas that extend 
up the sides of the adjacent heights. Here the perma- 
nent work began. 

About the time of Mr. Fisk's death (1825) there was 
a remarkable state of religious inquiry, and Mr. Bird 
and Mr. Goodell were thronged by men and women who 
came to learn the follies of their own system, and to be 
taught the truth. At the same time, also, rose the spirit 
of persecution, which, shared in by Greeks, Maronites, 
and Papists, often encouraged by the French and Russian 
authorities, and enforced by Moslem power, for more 
than a quarter of a century laid its heavy hand upon the 
missionary work. Already had the Sultan, instigated 
by the college of the Propaganda, issued his firman to all 
the pachas of Western Asia, forbidding the circulation 

K 



104 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

of the Scriptures. And now (1826) Rome sent in hot 
haste twenty fresh priests and thirteen thousand dollars 
to Syria, while excommunications began to be thundered 
from the Greek and Romish churches. 

The first Maronite conversions revived the martyr 
spirit and the martyr fate. Asaad Shidiak, secretary 
of the Maronite Patriarch, and afterward instructor of 
Jonas King, sat down to answer Mr. King's farewell 
letter, which he had been employed to copy. As he 
reached the last page of his reply, light flashed iu upon 
his mind with marvelous suddenness. He laid down 
his pen, and surrendered to the truth. The Patriarch 
wrote him letters, and sent him messages, with threats 
on the one hand, and promises of office and money on 
the other. But in vain. A personal interview was 
equally fruitless. His marriage contract is broken ; but 
he stands firm against the love of woman. Twenty of 
his relatives deliver him up by force to the Patriarch, 
and the Patriarch to prison. He is kept in chains, and 
daily beaten. The people visit him to revile him, and 
spit in his face. His own brother opposes an application 
for his release. Once they led him out of his dungeon, 
offered him an image of the Virgin Mary on the one 
hand, and burning coals on the other, and ordered him 
to take his. choice. He took the coals, pressed them to 
his lips, and returned to his cell. At length he was 
walled up alive, and scantily fed through a hole in the 
Avail to prolong his sufferings, and break his spirit. But 
though the body wasted away, the unconquerable mind 
held firm, and he proved " faithful unto death." Pharez 
Shidiak escaped his brother's fate by a timely flight to 
Malta. The next year Mr. Bird was driven out of the 
village of Ehden, in Lebanon, with peril of his life, and 



THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 105 

the sheik, his friend, who had invited him to his moun- 
tain home, was excommunicated by the Patriarch, and 
violently assaulted by a band of Arabs. The Patriarch 
afterwards summoned the sheik to his presence, and 
threatened him with the fate of Asaad Shidiak. But the 
sturdy sheik laid his haud on his sword, and defied him. 
Meantime the first fruits were gathered the same year 
in the conversion of two Armenians, Dionysius Carabet 
and Gregory Wortabet, who, with their wives, were re- 
ceived into the mission church at Beirut. Before the 
year's end (1827) came the great battle of Navarino, and 
the next yea^ rumors of war between England and Tur- 
key having broken up the schools, cut off their inter- 
course, and endangered their safety, the missionaries 
Bird, Goodell, and Smith for a time withdrew to Malta. 
It was two years before they returned ; and in 1832 they 
were again shut in by pestilence and war. But the mis- 
sionaries held on till, in 1835, they had ten schools, with 
three hundred pupils, and an Arabic congregation of 
from forty to eighty persons, besides the band of beggars 
that Mr. Bird used to gather in his yard to read to them 
the Scriptures before he gave them bread. At this time 
numbers of the Druzes, to escape the Mohammedan con- 
scription, applied to the missionaries for baptism, and 
the whole Druze population of sixty or seventy thousand 
persons seemed ready to be baptized forthwith into the 
Christian church. But as, of course, they could not be 
so received, their new-born zeal died out before the end 
of the year, and left but the solitary Kasim in attendance 
on the preaching. He was then arrested, and threatened 
with death, as an apostate Mohammedan, and was re- 
leased only after he had made every arrangement for his 
expected execution. 



106 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

The mission was gradually re-enforced by admirable 
men : Eli Smith, prince of Arabic scholars, with his 
noble and gifted wife, for a time u the only schoolmis- 
tress in Syria," too soon cut off; Van Dyck, the worthy 
successor of Dr. Smith in the work of translation ; 
Thomson, of "The Land and the Book;" Calhoun, the 
saint of Mount Lebanon, of whom Daoud Pacha said, 
" If that man says I can not see out of my right eye, I 
would believe him ; " Whiting, Jessup, De Forest, Bliss, 
Ford, Post, Eddy, and others, their worthy companions. 
Stations were occupied at Abeih, Sidon, Tripoli, Hums, 
Deir el Komr, and some twenty-five other stations and 
out-stations. 

Never were missionary patience and courage more 
sorely tried* For, in addition to every form of steady 
opposition, oppression, and sometimes open violence, war 
and pestilence again and again broke over and broke up 
their labors. In 1840 Beirut was bombarded by the 
English fleet, and the rebellion of the Maronites closed 
the young seminary at Deir el Komr. Next year the 
civil war destroyed that village and many others. Again, 
in 1845, came another war of the Druzes and Maronites 
in Lebanon, sweeping the whole country, fighting one of 
its battles at the station of Abeih, and covering Lebanon 
with smoking villages. Occasional outbreaks in the 
same region culminated in a bloody conflict in 1859. 
The year 18G0 witnessed a horrible butchery of the 
nominal Christians, extending through all Lebanon to 
Damascus. The Druzes executed the slaughter, joined, 
however, by Turks and Moslems, and not discouraged 
by the Papal clergy. Scores of villages were laid in 
ashes, thousands of .families made homeless, and multi- 
tudes were slain. At Hasbeiya, one of the out-stations, 



THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 107 

more than a thousand helpless persons were slaughtered ; 
at Rasheiya, another out-station, out of a hundred and 
thirty surrendered and disarmed men only two escaped ; 
and the fated Deir el Komr was burned to the ground, 
and its male inhabitants butchered. In Damascus the 
slaughter raged five days, and averaged a thousand lives 
a day. During this time, however, Mr. Bird's defense- 
less family staid unmolested amid the carnage of Deir el 
Komr, and Mr. Calhoun, though warned by the consul 
to remove, remained on the mountains in safety through- 
out the war, while both belligerent parties in turn de- 
posited their spoils in his house and yard. The Protes- 
tants, in the main, were left uninjured. Ruined villages 
still tell the tale of those terrible ravages, and many of 
those scattered communities have never recovered from 
their dispersion. In 1865 came the plague, the locusts, 
and the cholera in a single year, and produced a panic ; 
in 1867 a Maronite rebellion, attended with great excite- 
ment, besides a most disastrous reaction from the Euro- 
pean war, producing financial failure and distress in 
Syria. Thus heavy has the hand of Providence been 
upon the mission. There was some alleviation in the 
fact that the war of 1860 effectually broke the power of 
the persecuting Maronite Patriarch, and brought the 
missionaries into favorable contact with the people, 
seventy-five thousand of whom, first and last, received 
aid from abroad through their ministrations. 

Meanwhile the hand of persecution has always been 
lifted to strike. During the year 1843, by procurement 
of the Greek Patriarch and the Russian consul, the 
Protestants of Hasbeiya were stoned in the streets, and 
were twice driven out of the village by threats of death 
from armed men. In 1849 Rev. Dr. Williams was 



108 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

violently expelled from Ehdea, near the famous Cedar 
Grove, by a mob led on by the clergy, who unceremoni- 
ously began to tear down the house over the heads of the 
ladies within. In 1858 the Greek Bishop of Hums gave 
permission to beat all who visited the missionary. In 
1858 the Protestants of Alma renewed the experience of 
Paul and Barnabas at Philippi — beating, chains, the 
stocks, and the dungeon. One Ishoc, the converted son 
of a notorious robber, was first saved by his mother from 
death at his father's hands ; and though the father also 
was afterward converted, the son has often been robbed, 
beaten, and wounded in his tours to do good. Iu 1866 
the Bishop of Akkar publicly exhorted his people to kill 
the Protestants. The Christians at Safeeta have endured, 
and still suffer, the severest abuse. "Where the persecu- 
tion cannot assume the form of open violence on directly 
religious grounds, it still has power, by forged evidences 
of debt, false accusations of crime, ecclesiastical and 
social excommunication, and interruption of business, to 
inflict a most painful oppression. 

Not less discouraging than the outward violence has 
been the fossilized formalism of the whole population. 
For generations the most sacred words and symbols had 
been prostituted not only till they had lost all meaning, 
but seemed to have obliterated all power of spiritual ap- 
prehension. The attempt to give the true gospel was 
like imparting life to a mummy. 

The Syrian mission has called for indomitable nerve, 
patience, and faith. Our missionaries have met the call. 
They have never faltered. Dr. Eli Smith, in all the dis- 
couragements of 1841 and 1842, resolutely opposed a 
withdrawal. When the disasters of 1860 were still fresh, 
one of them wrote thus : "To the question, Are you dis- 



THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 109 

couraged? we auswer, No." But it was not till 1848 
that they were permitted to organize the first native 
church, of nineteen members, at Beirut. 

The origin and history of the second church are remark- 
able. In a deep valley, just above the Hasbany foun- 
tain of the Jordan, and at the very base of Jebel esh 
Sheik, that rises ten thousand feet above the level of 
the sea, lies the town of Hasbeiya. Though mostly in 
ruins now, before the war of 1860 it contained six thou- 
sand inhabitants. The valley is governed by sheiks in 
whose family the tenure of office comes down from 
Saladin himself. Through the high hills that shut in 
Hasbeiya no missionary foot had ever entered, but the 
Word of God had found its way. In February, 1844, 
the little congregation at Beirut was enlarged by the 
presence of fifty Hasbeiyans, who had come to ask for 
religious teachers. They went home with a conditional 
consent, and soon wrote that the conditions were ful- 
filled, and they wanted the men. A little delay brought 
another deputation, who returned with their teachers. 
" It seemed almost a dream " to the missionaries. The 
Protestants — for so they became known — hearkened at 
once to their instructions, broke off their drinking and 
swearing, Sabbath-breaking and dishonesty, and the 
name of Protestant became an honored name. In July 
nearly two hundred persons were publicly enrolled as a 
Protestant community, and when threatened with armed 
subjugation, seventy-six men instantly signed a written 
covenant to stand by each other till death. A school 
was immediately opened. Young Syria, however, soon 
compelled the men to flee to Abeih, and when they re- 
turned, stoned them in the streets. Persecution deepened 
their religious experience, and they met at midnight to 



110 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

pray. One of them, who was fined, beaten, and impris- 
oned, was found late at night enjoying himself in reciting 
Scripture and in prayer. They soon appealed directly 
to the Sultan for protection, and obtained it. But the 
Patriarch, by his dreaded anathema cutting them off 
from all intercourse, reduced them to great distress, till 
their blameless character broke the force of the anathema, 
and procured them associates and friends. In the unset- 
tled state of the country they often went to meeting, like 
the Covenanters and the Plymouth Pilgrims, with arms 
in their hands. In 1851 they formed a church of six- 
teen members, soon built a church edifice furnished with 
a bell, and were making effectual progress in spreading 
the gospel around them, contributing also, in one year, 
twenty-eight dollars to circulate the Bible in China, when 
the storm of 1860 burst upon them. Their " holy and 
beautiful house was burned with fire," eight of them 
perished, and the rest were scattered. After five years, 
less than a dozen members could be rallied. But in 
1866 another and a beautiful church edifice was built, 
chiefly with Turkish indemnity money, and in place of 
the bell whose fragments now serve as weights in the 
market, another bell, the gift of the corporation of Wil- 
liams College, again calls the diminished band together. 
But a widow, who lived on the hill, excused her absence 
from the evening meetings in 1868, with the sad and 
significant reason that the houses about her were all in 
ruins, and the hyenas prowled around by night. 

Through such discouragements the work has gone on. 
Since the war a new earnestness of inquiry has been 
awakened, and a call for labor that the little missionary 
band have been entirely incapable of meeting. " More 
persons avowed themselves [nominal] Protestants in 



THE MISSION IN SYRIA. Ill 

1862 than for the previous forty years." In 1863 depu- 
tations and petitions were constantly coming from the 
whole region between Hums and Acre. And though 
the motives were largely secular, the movement showed 
the way to be open. Eighteen persons were added to 
the churches in 1865, thirty-one in 1866, and twenty- 
nine in 1867. There are now eight churches, compris- 
ing two hundred members.* Four stations and twenty- 
nine out-stations are at present occupied, and the mis- 
sionaries are aided by two native pastors, and ten native 
preachers. The mission directly maintains thirty-one 
common schools, with a thousand pupils ; while, stimu- 
lated by their example, twenty other schools are sup- 
ported in Lebanon by Scotch and English funds, and 
scores of others by the people ; and the Druzes, Maron- 
ites, and Greeks have established high schools of their 
own. The mission has a girls' boarding-school at Sidon, 
a seminary, with a theological department, at Abeih, a 
female seminary at Beirut, and though not connected 
with the mission, yet as a true child of the mission, a 
well-manned college of high order, at Beirut, opened 
with a freshman class of nineteen, and a sophomore class 
of ninety-two. The mission has done a great and well- 
recognized work in the cause of education and literature. 
Its press, in the year 1866, issued twenty-three thousand 
tracts, and twenty-eight thousand volumes, including 
fourteen thousand copies of the Scriptures. 

But such statistics as these hardly give a hint of the 
revolution which these unconquerable men have organ- 
ized in Syria, if their efforts could now be adequately fol- 
lowed up. They have fought through the principle of 

* The figures are those of 1868. See statistics in the Ap- 
pendix. 



112 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

toleration till the Papal Governor of Lebanon has per- 
mitted them to preach where they please, to open all the 
schools they can, to use the Bible in their schools, asd to 
sell it without hindrance. They have made the name of 
Christian honored in a region where once it was despised. 
They have fairly planted a band of churches, some of 
which, like those of Beirut, Sidon, Tripoli, and Hums, 
have begun by colporteurs, and other native labors, to 
radiate light in s.urrounding regions. They have diffused 
a noble spirit of education, till Mohammedans are send- 
ing their girls to mission schools, and Druzes, Maronites, 
and Greeks are founding schools of their own. They 
have provided one of the best translations of the Bible 
in the world, and devised a type so beautiful as to satisfy* 
the fastidious eye of the Arabs, till now " there are 
voweled Testaments among the Moslems, and Bibles 
among the monks in Greek and Maronite convents," and 
the call comes from Egypt, Assyria, Liberia, and even 
from Pekin, "Give us Arabic books." Forty thousand 
copies of the Arabic Scriptures have been circulated, 
mostly by sale, the Sheik of Mahardee paying for six 
copies with mats, and for a seventh with his trusty 
sword, while the colporteur has pushed his way beyond 
Jordan, and into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
" The number of novices in the convents is greatly on 
the decrease. Ritualism is losing its hold on many of 
the sects. There are Mohammedans who eat during the 
daytime in Ramadan, and Greeks and Papists who eat 
meat during Lent." In a Moslem village, near Sidon, 
in 1867, the men called the women and children to- 
gether to hear with them the preaching of the gospel, 
and in another village a Mohammedan kept the colpor- 
teur two days to read and expound the Scriptures. 



THE MISSION IN SYRIA. 113 

Such facts as these indicate that it is now a critical 
period in the history of Syria. The land is open. It 
might be made a time of great spiritual sowing, and 
reaping, too. Scores of villages are asking for teachers. 
Education is diffused ; perhaps it has been disproportion- 
ately cultivated. The Bible is widely scattered. Six- 
teen secular presses are now at work — a fact which 
tells that tares, too, may be, and are already, sown. 
Everything indicates such an opportunity and such a 
crisis as seldom occur. 

There are, indeed, difficulties in the conflict of two 
civilizations, the Europeauized condition of Beirut, and 
the primitive state of the country ; in the excessive pre- 
dominance of education, pressed on by foreign influences ; 
in the lack of helpful development of the native churches ; 
but, above all, in the numerical inadequacy of the mis- 
sionary band. What is needed now is, that these native 
churches be at once developed into self-support and active 
labor, and that the multitudes of waiting villages be at 
once occupied with the gospel. Could this inviting field 
be adequately cultivated forthwith, what harvests might 
we not see ! And to this end there is needed now a 
strong baud of fresh laborers to enter in and reap where 
noble men have sown in tears, and yet in hope. 



It will be borne in mind that this sketch of the Syria 
mission was written in 1868. The mission was trans- 
ferred to the Presbyterian Board in 1870. 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 115 



CHAPTER VI. 

MISSIONS IN CHINA. 

Few minds comprehend the greatness of China, past, 
present, or prospective, When we utter those two short 
syllables, we mention one third of the human family ; 
and each letter of that word stands for more than a 
hundred million souls. 

Every aspect of the empire is colossal. Huge moun- 
tain masses of immense altitude inclose it on the west y 
and shoot through the country their two long ranges so 
high that the great road from Canton to Pekiu winds 
through a pass eight thousand feet above the ocean. 
Vast basins of land lying between and among these 
mountain ranges are fertilized and commercially inter- 
woven by great navigable streams, the -chief of which are 
the Hoaag-ho, more than two thousand miles in length, 
and the Yang-tse Kiang, near three thousand miles long, 
ascended four hundred miles by the tide, and bearing 
myriads of barges and boats back and forth on its placid 
waters. Each of these, and other great rivers, are only 
the central threads of great networks of navigable streams, 
which render the empire pre-eminent among the nations 
in facilities for internal trade. Meanwhile the wide ex- 
tent and varied surface of the country, stretching through 
thirty-eight degrees of latitude and seventy-four of longi- 
tude, give rise to almost every kind of climate, and admit 

L 



116 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

of almost every species of vegetable production ; and the 
numerous rivers are remarkable for the abundance and 
variety of their fish. One tenth of the population derive 
their food from the waters. Nature has bestowed on China 
certain peculiar treasures and sources of immense profit 
in the tea-plant, the camphor-tree, the sugar-cane, the 
bamboo, of endless uses, indigo, cotton, rhubarb, the var- 
nish tree, and in the silk-worm, which is indigenous, and 
abounds in all parts of the country. The mineral re- 
sources are ample — gold, silver, zinc, lead, and tin in 
considerable quantities, exteusive mines of quicksilver, 
with iron and copper in great abundance. Porcelain 
clay is found in great deposits, and immense stores of 
coal, bituminous and anthracite, and, in short, almost 
every mineral production requisite for the complete sup- 
ply of the empire. Not even our own country has an 
area more directly fitted and furnished by nature for a 
great concentric empire, with all its resources at home, 
than this grand Asiatic region. 

In many respects the development of the empire has 
been proportionate to its resources. The almost un- 
equaled facilities for internal traffic afforded by its great 
river systems are increased by four hundred canals, 
greater in extent, possibly, than those of all other na- 
tions together, the longest of which was constructed six 
hundred years ago, and is twice the length of the Erie 
Canal. The most titanic work of defense ever erected 
by man is that famous wall, from fifteen to thirty feet in 
height, fifteen feet broad at the top, and fifteen hundred 
miles in length, built so long ago that the centuries of its 
age are more by five than the hundreds of miles of its 
length. The agriculture of China has been carried out 
on such a system as to utilize every kind and particle of 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 117 

refuse, and to maintain a density of population, in some 
of its provinces, — Kiang-ke, for example, — three times 
as great as the average of England, and more than twice 
that, even of Belgium. 

Those four or five hundred millions have been accumu- 
lating and toiling there for ages. Old England is an 
infant in the presence of China. Passing its fabulous 
era, the curtain of history rises two thousand years before 
Christ, and discloses already an elective monarchy ; and 
the eye wearies with reading the names and the exact 
dates of fifty-eight monarchs, from Ta-yu to Yew-wang, 
who reigned on the Yang-tse Kiang before Romulus had 
sucked his "wolf's milk" on the banks of the Tiber. 
The empire boasts a hoary civilization too, which, if 
never quickened by the true religion, has yet accumulated 
splendid trophies. Its perfection of agriculture and its 
marvelous industry challenge our admiration. Many of 
its great canals are two thousand years old. From time 
immemorial the nation have been manufacturers of silks. 
Wood-engraving and stereotype printing are at least five 
hundred years older in China than the time of Gutenberg 
and Faust in Germany. The earliest Christian mission- 
aries found here the magnetic needle. Gunpowder was 
in use at a remote antiquity, and the Tartars in the 
twelfth century learned here the use of guns and swords, 
and thence, perhaps, conveyed the knowledge of artillery 
to Europe. Seventeen hundred years ago the Chinese were 
using paper ; they had a lexicon of their language, that 
is still reckoned among their standards ; and the imperial 
library numbered eighty thousand volumes, two thirds of 
them "ancient" then. 

One honorable mark of the pervasive civilization of 
China is found in the wide diffusion and hidi estimate 



118 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

of education. Distinction in public life can be attained 
,only on condition of scholarship, tested by rigid ex- 
aminations. The knowledge of reading, writing, and 
arithmetic is with the men almost universal ; so that 
even the peasantry can keep their accounts, conduct their 
correspondence, and read the proclamations of the man- 
darins. In the southern provinces, especially, every 
village has its school, founded and supported by the vil- 
lages themselves. To the foreign visitor the school-room 
seems a young bedlam, for the children study rocking 
themselves backward and forward, and chanting the 
lesson, often indeed bawling it at the top of their voices. 
In the midst of the hubbub sits the master, listening and 
correcting ; and when each pupil has thoroughly rocked 
and screamed his lesson over to himself, he presents him- 
self to the teacher with a low bow, and " backs his book," 
that is, he turns his back and repeats his lesson. And it 
marks the old and stereotyped character of the civiliza- 
tion, that the children learn largely the ancient writings 
of Mencius and Confucius, committed in parrot style to 
memory. The peculiarities of the nation have been in- 
tensified by its inner completeness and outward seclusion. 
Shut off from the wave of western conquest by the 
mountains of Thibet, enveloped by inhospitable plains on 
the north, withdrawn from commerce by the breadth of 
the Pacific, and intrenched within her own exclusive 
policy, she knew for ages only the weaker nations and 
roving tribes upon her borders. Consequently, until 
within these last few years the national conceit has been 
insufferable and insuperable. The emperor was the 
"Son of Heaven/' sitting on the "Dragon Throne," 
and signing decrees with the " vermilion pencil ; " and 
his empire was the " Middle Kingdom," the " Inner 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 119 

Land," and the " Flowery Country." Their map of the 
world gave nine tenths of its space to China, and to Eng- 
land a spot as large as a thumb-nail, while our country 
was nowhere. The government documents designated 
foreigners as " barbarians," and the common people in 
many parts of the empire called them "foreign devils." 

So diverse have be^en all their customs from our own, 
as to place a barrier between us from the outset. " We 
read horizontally, they perpendicularly ; and the columns 
run from right to left. We uncover the head as a mark 
of respect, they put on their caps. We black our boots, 
they whitewash them. We give the place of honor on 
the right, they on the left. We say the needle points to 
the north, they to the south. We shake the hand of a 
friend in salutation, they shake their own. We locate the 
understanding in the brain, they in the belly. We place 
our foot-notes at the bottom of the page, they at the top. 
In our libraries we set our books up, they lay theirs down. 
We now turn thousands of spindles land ply hundreds of 
shuttles without a single hand to propel, they employ a 
hand for each." 

But the most singular thing of all, perhaps, is the lan- 
guage. Some have said it was specially invented by the 
devil to exclude Christianity. The fundamental concep- 
tion of it is difficult for a foreigner to grasp. It is chiefly 
monosyllabic, having no other letters or words than syl- 
lables. In one respect it is as colossal as the nation — 
in the number of its characters. Every character is the 
name of a thing. An immense number of seemingly 
arbitrary signs is therefore to be mastered. The labor 
is alleviated, however, by the fact that there are certain 
root words, variously estimated at from three hundred 
and fifteen to four thousand, and some two hundred and 



120 SKETCHES OP THE MISSIONS. 

fourteen symbolic characters, entering into, classifying, 
and characterizing the various combinations of signs. 
The number of words contained in the official dictionary 
is forty-three thousand five hundred, and other authorities 
reckon as many more. But the missionary Doolittle 
affirms that a knowledge of three or four thousand char- 
acters is sufficient for the reading of most books. The 
characters become so complicated in form that one re- 
markable specimen is made by fifty-two strokes of the 
pen. The language is still further complicated by the 
tones and inflections, which vary the meaning of the char- 
acters, and by the diversity of form and signification often 
attached to words identical in sound. The missionaries 
have found themselves greatly embarrassed, too, by the 
utter earthliness of the language. Among all its forty 
thousand words, rankly luxuriant in all the expressions 
for hateful passions and groveling vices, there was no 
suitable phraseology to describe one of the graces of the 
Spirit ; and it was for half a century a matter of grave 
discussion what should be the proper name of God. 

Difficult as the language confessedly is, the difficulty 
has, no doubt, been greatly magnified. It is one which 
for ages past has been constantly surmounted by these 
countless millions themselves ; it is one which Dr. Milne 
overcame so readily as to publish an address in Chinese 
within a twelvemonth after he entered the field. And 
the labor of acquisition is more than counterbalanced by 
the breadth of utterance. For though there are numer- 
ous spoken dialects, mutually unintelligible, the written 
language of this vast empire is one. And the weary 
translator, toiling at his task, may cheer himself with the 
thought that every verse he painfully prepares can speak 
in God's name to any one of four hundred million souls. 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 121 

The labor was lightened, too, from the beginning, by the 
fact that the missionary needed no outlay for types, 
presses, and printing offices with foreign printers and 
binders, but had only to give his manuscript to a China- 
man, and receive back his book all printed, and bound, 
and ready for circulation. 

China has been called the Gibraltar of heathenism. 
In some respects the statement is true. The complica- 
tion of the language is, after all, but a trivial barrier, for 
it can be as well surmounted for the cause of Christ as 
for every earthly purpose. We long had a grand obstacle 
in the overweening vanity and singular exclusiveness of 
the nation ; but the collisions with England and France, 
twelve years ago, have shaken these to their centre. 
There still remains the wonderful tenacity with which 
the nation identifies itself with the past and clings to its 
time-honored institutions, and especially the mighty hold 
which Confucius has upon their reverence and aatual 
adoration. Considering the number of centuries since 
his death — twenty-three — and the multitudes of men 
w r ho have ever since chosen him for their great light, no 
man has ever carried so wdde an influence. Said two old 
men of Shantung, refusing a religious tract, " We have 
seen your books, and do not want them. In the instruc- 
tions of our sage we have sufficient." They only gave 
voice to the hereditary feeling. Those doctrines, at their 
best estate, are but a self-sufficient morality. Another 
powerful obstacle to the true religion is the worship paid 
to deceased ancestors. It has its regular services and 
set times in every household ; is established by universal 
custom, compulsory by public sentiment, and, if neglected, 
enforceable by law. When we consider how deep are 
the sentiments of human nature on which it lays hold, 



122 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

we can easily see how firm that hold must be. The 
nation is also trained from childhood to the practice of 
innumerable other idolatrous ceremonies, till they have 
become a network in which the whole life is woven. 
These idolatries are supported at enormous expense. A 
missionary who had made careful inquiry through the 
district of Shanghai, and estimated the empire on the 
same scale, computed the annual expenditures of Chinese 
idolatry at the almost increditable sum of one hundred 
and eighty millions of dollars. Surely there is some 
money-power in China arrayed against the annual half a 
million of the American Board, expended on the world. 

But perhaps neither Confucianism, Tauism, nor Bud- 
dhism, — the three chief forms of religion, — offer obsta- 
cles so great as the character and habits of the nation. 
Under a calm and courteous exterior, foreigners have 
found them cunning and corrupt, treacherous and vin- 
dictive. Gambling and drunkenness, though abundantly 
prevalent, are far outstripped by their licentiousness, 
which taints the language with its leprosy, often deco- 
rates the walls of their inns with the foulest of scenes, by 
them called " flowers," and lurks beneath a thin Chinese 
lacker as a deep dead-rot in society. Said Dr. Bridg- 
man, after sixteen years' labor among them, — and Mr. 
Johnson, with a still longer experience, confirmed his 
words, — " The longer I live in this country, the more do 
I see of the wickedness of this people. All that Paul said 
of the ancient heathen is true of the Chinese, and true to 
an extent that is dreadful. Their inmost soul, their very 
conscience, seems to be seared, dead — so insensible that 
they are, as regards a future life, like the beasts that 
perish. No painting, no imagination, can portray and 
lay before the Christian world the awful sins, the horri- 
ble abominations, that fill the land." 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 123 

Associated with all this corruption is the deepest 
degradation of woman. From the cradle to the grave 
her life is one long-drawn woe. Her birth is a disgrace 
and a burden to the family ; and infanticide of females 
accordingly prevails to a shocking extent. In forty 
towns around Amoy, Mr. Abeel found that two fifths of 
the girls were destroyed in their infancy ; and intelligent 
Chinese informed Mr. Doolittle that probably more than 
half the families of the great city of Foo Chow have 
destroyed one or more of their daughters — drowned in 
tubs, thrown into streams, and buried alive, commonly 
by the father. Sometimes they are exposed, sometimes 
sold in infancy for slaves or for wives. A girl of one 
year will bring two dollars, and each additional year, till 
she is old enough to work and be more valuable, two 
dollars more. If spared alive at home, she is but a 
menial ; taught to work, but not to read or write. She 
is sold in marriage to some man whom she never sees 
till the wedding day — a man with whom she never eats, 
who holds and uses the right to starve her, beat her, or 
to sell her permanently or transiently to some other man, 
or in due time to place another wife by her side. From 
the prolonged curse of life not seldom she escapes by 
suicide. Said the Mandarin Ting to the French traveler 
Hue, folding his arms, and stepping back a pace or two, 
" Women have no souls." And when it was insisted 
and argued that they had, he laughed long and loud at 
the thought. " When I get home I will tell my wife she 
has a soul. She will be astonished, I think." Does not 
one mighty wail sweep over the waters of the Pacific, and 
sound day and night in the ears of the wives, mothers, and 
daughters of this country, beseeching them to go and to send 
to the rescue of these their degraded, suffering sisters? 



124 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

One other obstacle only shall be mentioned — the use 
of opium. Perhaps it is the most formidable of all. 
Two names deserve to be handed down to infamy : those 
of Vice-President Wheeler and Colonel Watson, of the 
British East India Company, who, in the beginning of 
this century, conceived the deplorable thought of sending 
the opium of Bengal into China. Even the heathen em- 
pire roused itself at length, and nobly struggled hard to 
eject the horrid gift, — this Pandora's box, — but the 
British government, in 1840, forced it back at the can- 
non's mouth. The effect has been hideous beyond de- 
scription. The physical, social, and moral evils with 
which it is steadily flooding the nation, in its lava-like 
course, no tongue can tell. The Chinese grow excited 
when they speak of it ; and the missionaries, with one 
voice, declare it to be, next to native depravity, the most 
dreadful barrier to the progress of the gospel. Surely 
Christendom owes China the gospel with a fearful force 
of obligation. 

No doubt the difficulties are great. But the motive, 
and the moving power, are greater far. Here is a huge 
prize for the Lord of Hosts. If China has been thought 
the Gibraltar, it may yet become the Waterloo, of hea- 
thendom. Long ago Christian eyes were turned to the 
shining mark. Twelve centuries ago the Nestorian 
Church, in her palmy days, planted churches in China, 
which, after various successes and reverses, were crushed 
by the heel of Genghis Khan, overrun by the victorious 
march of the Mohammedan princes, and forcibly obliter- 
ated by the dynasty of Ming. In the thirteenth century 
Rome came here with an archbishop, seven assistant 
bishops, and a train of missionaries. Again she returned 
in 1581, in Jesuit disguise, led by one Ricci, of whom, a 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 125 

Catholic writer thus speaks : " The kings found in him a 
man full of complaisance; the pagans a minister who 
accommodated himself to their superstitions ; the Man- 
darins a polite courtier, skilled in all the courts ; and the 
devil a faithful servant, who, far from destroying, estab- 
lished his reign among the people, and even extended it 
to the Christians." Since that time, by the customary 
superficial methods, which in China do not include the 
distribution of the Scriptures, and very seldom the ability 
to preach intelligibly, the Papacy has prosecuted its work, 
till in China proper it now boasts of twenty bishops, four 
hundred and seventy priests (half of them natives), and 
three hundred and sixty thousand converts, or baptized 
persons. 

The father of Protestant missions in China was Pev. 
Robert Morrison — a man who had prepared for the 
Divinity School, at Hoxton, by studying between the 
hours of seven at night and six in the morning, making 
boot-trees during the day. With a burning desire to 
preach to the heathen, he broke away from the dissua- 
sions of his friends and the tears of his father, to this 
dark land. Under the charge of the London Missionary 
Society, and with a letter from James Madison to the 
American Consul at Canton, he, in 1807, found his way 
in that city to the ware-rooms of a New York merchant, 
where, in the native costume, with long nails and cue, 
he ate, slept, lived, and studied by day, and, with his 
small brown earthen lamp, by night, praying his daily 
prayers in broken Chinese. After seven long years, he 
gave the natives the New Testament entire, and baptized 
his first convert from a little spring gushing from the 
hill-side by the sea, in utter solitude. In that same year 
he was joined by the noble William Milne, who had 



126 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

sprung from a Scotch peasant's home ; at the age of six- 
teen had spent whole evenings at prayer in a sheep-cote, 
kneeling on a bit of turf that he carried with him ; at 
twenty had consecrated himself to the mission w r ork ; 
then spent five years in providing for his sisters and 
widowed mother ; told the committee-man, who objected 
to his rustic appearance, that he w T as ready to go as a 
hewer of wood and a draw T er of w T ater, so that he might 
be in the work, and in a year from his arrival was pub- 
lishing a Chinese address. Three years later, Morrison 
and Milne issued the whole of the Scriptures, — a work 
which, in her hundreds of years of occupancy, the Rom- 
ish Church never did nor attempted. Other translations 
have since been published, — the New Testament, in 
Mandarin colloquial, quite recently, at Peking. Morrison 
and Milne w T ere feebly reenforced from home, and after 
almost a quarter of a century, their earnest call — which 
proved to be Milne's dying call — reached America. It 
was then (1829) that the American Board began its work 
in the persons of the excellent Bridgman and Abeel, fol- 
lowed in succession by other noble men and women, some 
of whom have also followed them to heaven, in firm faith 
of the sure harvest in due season. Among earlier mem- 
bers of the mission were Williams, Parker, Doty, Pohl- 
man, Ball, Peet, Bonney, and other honored names. The 
Board is at present represented in China by thirty-nine 
Americans, male and female, who, with their native 
preachers and helpers, occupy some seven stations, and 
fifteen out-stations, where they have organized eleven 
small churches. Other Protestant Boards have followed 
them, until, according to a recent statement prepared at 
Tientsin, one hundred and twenty-four [ordained] mis- 
sionaries are now in the field, who, with their wives, 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 127 

other helpers, and native preachers and assistants, occupy 
some twenty-six principal points and adjacent stations. 
Morrison's, Marshman's, Gutzlaff's, and Medhurst's 
translations of the Bible, and other versions, or partial 
versions, have been issued, together with some eight 
hundred different tracts and books, many of which have 
been widely circulated. Many churches have been or- 
ganized ; most of them small, although three of those 
belonging to the Reformed Church at Amoy together 
number three hundred and seventy-seven communicants. 
Already native pastors are at the head of some of these 
churches, while many native evangelists are preaching 
the gospel to their countrymen. The number of converts 
was given, two years ago, by Mr. Williams, Secretary 
of Legation at Peking, at more than three thousand. 

But the history of missions in China is a history still 
of the future ; let us hope of the near future, and a 
glorious history. For " what are these among so many" 
- — one missionary to three or four millions of people? 
They stand oppressed before the greatness of the work, 
and the magnificence of the opportunity, amid the won- 
derful renaissance that is sweeping over China. Mr. 
Chapin wrote from Tientsin, in 1867: " Would that we 
had a hundred men full of faith, and zeal, and love. 
Where is there such a field ? I wonder that the hearts 
of the pious and enterprising youth of our country are 
not so stirred up, in view of the glorious service, as to 
lead thousands of them to present themselves to the 
Board, and beg to be sent forth on this holy, joyous 
mission." 

It is, indeed, a future of glorious hope and possibilities. 
Great as are the obstacles, the power of the gospel has 
shown itself greater, and some of the very obstacles may 

M 



128 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

yet throw their enormous weight upon its side. The 
Holy Spirit has proved his ability to pierce the worldly 
and sensual Chinese heart. 

Tsae A-ke, that first convert whom Morrison baptized 
in the solitude of the sea-shore, proved faithful unto 
death, and many others have proved, also, faithful in 
life, till now that solitary believer is represented by three 
thousand, many of whom are faithful preachers of the 
word. The Missionary Herald recently informed us of 
a young Chinese merchant in Hawaii, who has left his 
business to labor for Christ among his countrymen upon 
those islands. A gentleman in manner and character, 
he speaks English, Hawaiian, and six dialects of the 
Chinese, and preaches with fervor and with power ; and 
his countrymen there are abandoning their idolatry, and 
predicting the speedy prevalence of Christianity through 
their native empire. 

God has, indeed, wrought wonders since that time, — 
not a generation gone by, — when the whole foreign in- 
tercourse of the empire was concentrated in the Hong 
merchants of Canton. The opium war closed, in 1842, 
by unlocking five other ports to open commerce. The 
war with France and England, ending in 1860, did still 
greater things. It reversed the policy of the empire. 
AYhen the foreign armies steadily advanced toward Pe- 
king, storming every fort on the way till they had burned 
the summer palace, and invested the capital, the treach- 
erous Emperor fled to Tartary, the national vanity and 
obstinacy broke down together, and a new day dawned 
on China. Not only are eighteen ports now open to 
trade, but the empire is free to foreign travel and teach- 
ing, with the definite pledge of toleration to Christianity, 
and of protection to its missionaries. The government 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 129 

has at length learned, by hard experience, thoroughly to 
respect and desire the civilization of the West. Chinese 
troops have been drilled in foreign tactics on the very 
battle-grounds where they had been defeated within the 
year. The Viceroy of the Fukien and Chekiang prov- 
inces is building gun-boats by the aid of French ship- 
builders, and is training thirty young men to learn the 
French language and the art of ship-building, and as 
many more to learn the English and the art of naviga- 
tion. Wheaton's Law of Nations has, by order of the 
government, been translated and distributed to the officials 
of the empire ; and so well has it been conned, that, in a 
recent difficulty of the Prussian Minister with the au- 
thorities, he was both astounded and discomfited by their 
citation of its principles. The government has founded 
the University of Peking. There is a longing for foreign 
science, so earnest that it will suffer the leaven of Chris- 
tianity that accompanies, as when the Viceroy of Xiang- 
nan publishes, with his own sanction and introduction, a 
translation of Euclid, wherein the missionary translator 
boldly advocates the cause of religion in the preface. A 
man of wealth and learning has recently argued, in one 
of the Chinese papers, in favor of the missionary work 
as a matter of policy, declaring that " the benefits which 
we derive from the teachings of the missionaries are 
more than we can enumerate," and that " their influence 
on our future will be unbounded." The embassy of 
Mr. Burlingame was a startling event in the drowsy policy 
of this ancient empire. A powerful progressive party is 
rising into influence which may yet throw the momentum 
of the empire in favor of Christianity. For it seems an 
admitted fact — -reiterated to Mr. Burlingame by a mem- 
ber of the Board of Foreign Affairs — that the intelligent 



130 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

men of China " put no faith in the popular religions," 
and that a large part of the people, notwithstanding their 
industrious observances of forms, are wholly indifferent 
to the principles of their faith. Thousands of copies of 
the Bible, and other Christian books and tracts, have 
been scattered among this reading people. They begin 
to ask for Christian books. Attention is turned to 
Christianity. Messrs. Lee and Williamson, of the Scotch 
and London missions, in a long tour of two thousand 
miles, in 1866, found multitudes who bought their books, 
and hung eagerly on their words. Mr. Chapin, in his 
journeys iu the neighborhood of Tientsin, spoke to audi- 
ences of two or three thousand persons. Mr. Williams, 
of the Bible Society, after a two months' tour from 
Peking, reported the people as calling for the living 
preacher. The very degradation of the Chinese women 
may yet prodigiously react in behalf of our religion, with 
its elevation of the sex. The girls' schools are already 
growing in favor. Mr. Williams writes from Peking that 
they are specially encouraged by their access to the 
women, who in several families welcome their visits ; 
and Mr. Blodget speaks of "boat loads of women " 
coming in from the country towns, bringing their food 
with them, to be instructed in the gospel. Mrs. Gulick, 
on her visit to Yiicho, while talking to a room full of 
women, was accosted by one who took her by the hand, 
saying, " I believe in Jesus, and last New Year's day 
burned all my idols." Others were much moved ; three 
or four offered simple, but earnest prayers, declared 
their faith in Jesus, and asked for baptism. 

In truth, the long dormant elements in China are rous- 
ing to action. A period of awakening, and of possible 
instruction, has come at last. It is a time of formation 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 131 

and of hope. Everything is ready and waiting. It is an 
important hour for that vast empire. Where, now, is 
the solid phalanx of young Christian heroes, wise with a 
heavenly wisdom, fired w T ith a Christ-like zeal, and filled 
with a largeness of heart, and a breadth of comprehen- 
sion, as great as the opportunity, to cast themselves into 
the breach, and win the empire to Christ? Where are 
those men? Let them now stand forth, unfurl the ban- 
ner of the cross, and call on the churches to pour out 
their prayers and their money like water for their sup- 
port. And the churches dare not say them nay. China 
and the world will owe them the profoundest debt of 
gratitude, and the Master will say, u Well done." Has 
there been such an opportunity since the world began? 

While preparing this Article for the press the writer 
has met with a statement which casts new light on the 
prospects and condition of China, and more than con- 
firms all the foregoing assertions. It shows how great a 
foundation has been laid, and how rapidly the work rolls 
up, increasing as it goes. It shows, also, how firm a 
hold the gospel can lay upon the seemingly wooden heart 
and mind of the Chinaman. It was written by Rev. S. 
L. Baldwin, a Methodist Episcopal missionary, and ap- 
peared in the Independent, December 21, 1871, in answer 
to certain disparaging inquiries of a contributor. It is a 
pretty effectual answer : — 

" I. What has been accomplished in China? 

" Answer. — Although the first Protestant missionary 
to the Chinese landed at Canton in 1807, and about sixty 
missionaries were sent from Europe and America, be- 
tween 1813 and 1842, to China, and "to the Chinese set- 
tlements in Java, Siam, and the Straits, the real era of 



132 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

the commencement of Protestant missionary labor in 
China is the year 1842, in which the treaty with Great 
Britain was signed, which opened the ' five ports ' to the 
commerce of the world. Our missionaries were then 
permitted to enter at all the open ports with the word of 
life. A long period of preparatory work was then en- 
tered upon — breaking down the prejudices of a people 
for centuries secluded from the rest of the world, over- 
coming the superstitions of the masses, and undermining 
their faith in idolatry. While this work was going on — 
for ten or twelve years — there were scarcly any con- 
verts ; so that nearly all the converts have been received 
within the last sixteen years, and by far the larger part 
of them within the last seven years. The following 
table will show the ratio of fncrease during the last 
eighteen years : — 

In 1853 the number of native Christians was . . 351 
" 1863 " " " " . . 1,974 

" 1864 " " " " . . 2,607 

" 1868 " * " " . . 5,743 

The present number is very nearly 8,000 

" But we should get a very inadequate idea of the 
work done if we w r ere to look only at the number of 
communicants. Over five hundred different books have 
been printed in the Chinese language by Protestant mis- 
sionaries, including the Sacred Scriptures, commenta- 
ries, theological, educational, linguistic, historical, geo- 
graphical, mathematical, astronomical, and botanical 
works — books ranging in size and importance from the 
child's primer to Dr. Martin's translation of ' Wheaton's 
International Law,' Dr. Hobson's medical and physio- 
logical works, and Mr. Wylie's translations of 4 Euclid's 
Geometry ' and ' Herschell's Astronomy/ 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 133 

u Besides, the vast advance made in eradicating the 
prejudices of the people, securing their confidence, and 
gaining entrance into the interior, is to be taken into the 
account. The fact that fifty thousand native patients 
are annually treated in Protestant missionary hospitals 
is also full of significance. It is a common thing for us 
to meet with people now who say that for eight, o; Un, 
or more years they have not worshiped idols ; that they 
were convinced by preaching that they heard, or books 
that they received, so long ago, that idolatry was wrong, 
and had given it up. We find them now, in interior 
cities and villages, ready to become adherents of the 
gospel of Christ. 

" II. What are our prospects for the future? 

" Ansiver. — Rev. M. J. Knowlton, of Ningpo, calls 
attention to the fact that of late the number of out- 
stations, of native preachers, and of converts has doubled 
once in a period of a little over three years, and that we 
may reasonably expect that by the year 1900 the native 
Christians will number over two millions. Bishop 
Kingsley, in addressing the native Methodist preachers 
at Foqchow, in 1869, reminded them that there were 
more Methodists then in Foochow than there were in 
America a hundred years before. Let this fact be borne 
in mind, namely, that, although the Chinese move slowly, 
when they begin to move they move in masses, and there 
is no reason why this rule may not operate to the advan- 
tage of Christianity. In the Foochow mission of the 
Methodist Episcopal church we had last year nine hun- 
dred and thirty-one members, and nine hundred and 
sixty-nine probationers, showing the work of the year 
preceding to have equaled, in the number of converts, all 
the years of the mission's history that had gone before. 



134 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

Such facts as these will have weight with all thinking 
minds. 

" III. What is the character of Chinese converts? 

"Answer. — As among converts at home, there is 
every variety of character among them ; but in general 
they are faithful, earnest, devoted men. The difference 
between them and their Pagan neighbors is marked. 
The Pagan neighbor is dirty. The Christian is clean. 
The Pagan lies, and delights in lying. The Christian 
becomes truthful. The Pagan treats his wife as a slave. 
The Christian treats her as an immortal being. The 
Pagan regards the birth of a daughter as a calamity. 
The Christian welcomes the little girl, gives her to God 
in baptism, and tries to prepare her for a useful life. 

" One of our native Christians at Foochow went on 
Saturday to an American mercantile house with samples 
of tea. The agent in charge said, 4 Come to-morrow.' 
The native replied, ' To-morrow is Sunday, and I never 
transact business on God's day ! ' (Some incidents of 
this kind may go far to account for the asserted fact that 
' merchants do not expect great things from the mission- 
aries.') 

" When Li Cha Mi, a few w r eeks ago, was stoned by 
persecutors until he was nearly dead, and afterward, in 
attempting to elude his pursuers, fell over a precipice 
twenty feet high, while he was falling he prayed, ' Lord, 
have mercy upon them, and forgive them.' 

" After Ling Ching Ting had been beaten with two 
thousand stripes, as soon as he was able to move he re- 
turned to the place where he had been beaten, and 
preached the gospel so faithfully that some of the very 
men who brought that trial upon him were converted. 

" When Hii Yong Mi was driven from his home by a 



MISSIONS IN CHINA. 135 

mob, and his wife cruelly outraged, they both held stead- 
fast to their faith in Christ, emulating the spirit of Job : 
* Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' 

" When old Father Ling, at Ku-cheng, was told by 
heathen friends, c You must not try to give up opium 
smoking now after forty years' practice ; it will kill 
you ; ' his reply was, 4 1 belong to Jesus. I have prom- 
ised to give up every sin. I would rather die trying to 
conquer this sin than live an opium smoker.' 

" I speak only of men I have personally known, whose 
Christian character commands my admiration, and whose 
Christian lives are evidence of the genuineness of their 
profession." 



THE MISSION TO PERSIA. 137 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE MISSION TO PERSIA. 

Henry Martyn was the pioneer of moderm missions 
in Persia. Sabat, his Armenian friend and supposed 
convert in India, had painted in glowing colors the read- 
iness of the Mohammedans of Persia to throw off their 
delusion. When the fatal letter came that blasted all his 
earthly hopes, announcing that an English mother re- 
fused to the missionary chaplain one daughter from her 
numerous family, and that the daughter also refused 
solely because of the mother's refusal, the last bond that 
held him was severed. Early in June, 1811, accompanied 
by the " assassin-looking" Sabat, and attended by a pain 
in his chest, and a deeper pain in his heart, — the har- 
bingers of his doom, — he rode into Shiraz. For eleven 
months he wrought there at his Persian translation of the 
New Testament and the Psalms, thronged at his house 
by wrangling Mussulmans, and in his horseback rides 
saluted with brickbats by Mohammedan boys. At length 
disease gained the victory. Four months he lay at Ta- 
briz, with the fever raging in his frame, and wasting him 
" to a skeleton." Then, in a transient rallying of his 
strength, he wrote his last letter, — it was to his " dearest 
Lydia," — started for England, and at Tocat rested in 
heaven. To all his other blessed memories, he added 



138 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

that of being one in whom the love of Christ was mightier 
far than the tenderest love of woman. 

It was reported that some conversions followed his 
labors. There was even a touching story of a Persian 
Mohammedan who once listened in silent sadness to the 
profane levity of a British gentleman at dinner, and told 
him afterward that he had been led by Martyn to the 
Saviour. But Rev. J. L. Merrick, some twenty years 
later, searched in vain to find traces of such a person. 
Yet Dr. Perkins found a Chaldean bishop who, after the 
lapse of forty-seven years, vividly remembered the frail 
appearance and fascinating manners of " the* finest Eng- 
lishman he ever saw," who, in his temperate way, "break- 
fasted on an egg^ and dined on a chicken-wing," wrote 
from morning till night, and boiled over with animation 
and discussion ; while Martyn's Persian translation of the 
New Testament is still doing service for the Master. 

Eighteen years passed away. Smith and D wight, on 
their exploring expedition for the American Board, found 
their way to Persia, and their hearts were deeply enlisted 
for the Nestorian Christians of that country. Their 
whole history, condition, and position seemed eminently 
hopeful. 

The Nestorian Church is the oldest of the sects. It 
traces its origin, truly or falsely, to the apostle Thomas, 
and claims a great army of one hundred and sixty thou- 
sand martyrs in one province more than fifteen centuries 
ago. Certain it is, that from the third century onward, 
and more especially from the middle of the eighth to the 
middle of the fourteenth century, that Church was char- 
acterized by a remarkable series of missionary labors, 
preaching the gospel in Busra and Khorasan, to " the 
Bactrians, Huns, Persians, Indians, Pers-armenians, 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 139 

Medes, and Elamites. They followed the roving Tartar, 
and established bishoprics in the middle kingdom." Under 
the reign of the Caliphs, says Gibbon, " the Nestorian 
Church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and 
Cyrene, and their numbers, together with those of the 
Jacobites, were computed to surpass the Greek and Latin 
communions." In India alone they had fourteen hun- 
dred churches. 

They were named — ■ or nicknamed — from Nestorius, 
the deposed Patriarch of Constantinople, because they 
espoused the doctrines for which, in 431, he was con- 
demned as a heretic, when he was only a reformer. His 
chief offense was, that he objected to calling Mary " the 
mother of God," and opposed, sometimes rashly and con- 
fusedly, the views and tendencies which were symbolized 
in that phrase. But though the churches in Persia were 
the earliest representatives of the doctrines of Nestorius, 
they were but a fragment of a great communion, which 
at one time counted twenty-five metropolitans, and 
whose Patriarch established his See successively at the 
great commercial cities, Ctesiphon, Seleucia, Bagdad, and 
Mosul. 

This once mighty church, that so grandly prosecuted its 
missionary work, chiefly while all Europe was slumber- 
ing through the dark ages, was now reduced to a rem- 
nant of less than one hundred and fifty thousand. Their 
Patriarch, bearing the linear title of Mar Shimon, had 
his seat in an obscure village in the mountains of Koor- 
distan, surrounded by one or two millions of ferocious 
Mohammedan Koords, and a large portion of his people 
lived in the plains below, enveloped by twelve millions of 
Mohammedan Persians. They live thus in the border- 
land between the two great Mohammedan sects, the 



140 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

Sunnees and the Shiites. It is a curious and romantic 
juxta-position of races. For the Nestorians are clearly 
of the old Semitic stock, allied to the Jews — if they be 
not, as Dr. Grant more than doubtfully maintained, relics 
of the lost ten tribes. The Koords, whether sprung or 
not from the Parthians, who defeated Crassus, are the 
race to w T hom the great Saladin belonged ; while the 
modern Persians are descendants of the old Medes and 
Persians. 

But the glory of the church had long departed. In 
outw T ard extent and missionary labors it had never rallied 
from the slaughters of the ferocious Tamerlane, about 
the opening of the fifteenth century. Piles of seventy 
thousand human heads in the public squares of Ispahan, 
and ninety thousand at Bagdad, bore witness to his 
method and the thoroughness of his work. And while 
reduced in numbers, it had also lost its ancient life, and 
become one of the dead churches of the East ; only not 
so locked up in death as many others. 

The reasons which first drew the hearts of Messrs. 
Smith and Dwight especially toward this feeble remnant 
of a great church, were its extreme liberality to other 
sects, and its entire rejection of the confessional, that 
fetter and curse of the other Oriental churches. The 
Nestorians were also found to have been trained up with 
a singular reverence for the Scriptures, — little as they 
knew of their contents, — and the utmost readiness to 
refer everything to that ultimate tribunal. The Moham- 
medans of Persia were meanwhile Avholly inaccessible to 
direct approaches ; for death w r as the penalty of their 
conversion — a penalty, which, as Mr. Merrick avers, at 
that time would certainly have been inflicted. Besides, 
it would have been impossible to awaken in their minds 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 141 

any respect for the gospel so long as the representatives 
of Christianity among them showed it to be barren and 
dead. It seemed clear that the Christian work in Persia 
must begin with the Nestorians. 

Justin Perkins was then a tutor in Amherst College. 
Before the report of Smith and D wight was published, it 
was arranged that he should enter upon this field. A 
widowed mother, aged and dependent, cheerfully gave 
him up ; and in September, 1833, he and his wife (Char- 
lotte Bass) embarked at Boston. But toil and excitement 
had prostrated him with a dangerous sickness. He was 
carried twenty miles on a bed to his berth in the vessel. 
As he was lifted on board, the captain said to the mate, 
" We shall soon throw that man overboard." But the 
Lord had thirty-six years of Christian labor in him yet. 
He lay there, silently thanking God that he was on his 
w r ay to Perisa, and soon rose to the most vigorous health. 
After a winter at Constantinople, gladdened by the re- 
enforcement of Dr. and Mrs. Grant, destined for the same ■ 
mission, they left by schooner for Trebizond, and. thence 
six hundred miles on horseback, over a mountain region 
where sometimes the bridle of Mrs. Perkins was held by 
one muleteer and her saddle by another. A royal firman 
procured an unmolested passage for the " Nobleman 
Perkins " through the Turkish dominions ; but intolera- 
ble annoyances followed them through the Russian prov- 
inces of Georgia. 

Scarcely had they been welcomed most delightfully by 
the British embassy at Tabriz, when Mrs. Perkins sank 
down with almost fatal sickness. Before she had fully 
recovered, her husband set off for Oroomiah in search 
of a teacher. The first Nestorian with whom he shook 
hands, and who returned with him to Tabriz, as both 



142 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

teacher and pupil, was the good bishop whose manly face 
became afterward so well known iii America — Mar 
Yohannan, the fast friend of the mission. A large num- 
ber of the simple villagers flocked around, exclaiming, 
" Welcome, most welcome ! The Lord has heard our 
prayers." The bishop accompanied the missionary to 
visit the Patriarch in the mountains, where for three 
hours they conversed by three interpreters through a 
chain of four different languages, — the Syriac, the Turk- 
ish, the Armenian, and the English. The Patriarch 
also said, " Thanks be to God, this is what I have been 
praying for." 

Another year found Messrs. Perkins and Grant sta- 
tioned at Oroomiah, the birthplace of Zoroaster, and the 
seat of the ancient fire-worshippers. It was one general 
" welcome." Mar Yohannan rode forth at full gallop to 
meet them on the way. At dinner, his young brother, a 
lad of fourteen, taught by himself, pulled from his pocket 
a New Testament, and read to them in English the third 
chapter of Matthew with its message of "repentance" 
and the drawing nigh of " the kingdom of heaven." A 
furious storm drenched them through that night, as they 
rode into Oroomiah. But next morning, whtle their room 
was full of boxes and packages, the Mohammedan Gov- 
ernor, who had previously declared, with Persian ex- 
aggeration, " The whole city shall be yours," sent his 
chief officer to congratulate them, and, a few days later, 
his cousin also, who affirmed that their coming was " like 
the suu's rising on the world." In their excursions 
among the villages, the simple-hearted Nestorians flocked 
around, and sometimes came out with drums and trum- 
pets to greet them. 

They soon descended from Persian poetry and Nes- 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 143 

torian rejoicings to the prose of hard work. Let us look 
on the scene. A province, a plain, a lake, and a city, 
all bear the name of Oroomiah. A beautiful plain, some 
forty or fifty miles by twenty, lies forty-five hundred feet 
above the ocean level. Three rivers from the mountains 
are cut up into hundreds of canals to irrigate its deep al- 
luvial soil. The streams friuged with willows, sycamores, 
and poplars, the roads in every direction lined with fruit 
trees, magnificent grain fields, large vineyards, number- 
less gardens and orchards, laden with almost every fruit 
of the temperate zone, offer the aspect of an earthly par- 
adise. The air is so clear that Jupiter's moons and 
Saturn's rings often can be seen by the naked eye. In 
the center of this great plain lies the mud-walled city, 
with its twenty thousand people, and the region round is 
sprinkled with three hundred villages, numbering from a 
hundred to a thousand inhabitants in each. The whole 
eastern side of the plain is skirted by the lake of Oroomi- 
ah, eighty miles in length, as salt and as heavy as the 
Dead Sea, and as destitute of fish, but enlivened by the 
scarlet flamingo and other fowl along its shore ; while 
on the west rise the treeless mountains of Koordistan, 
covered for a long distance upward with rich vegetation, 
sprinkled with flocks and shepherds, and dotted with two 
hundred villages that lie nestled in the valleys or perched 
on the hill-sides, till the rocky heights, fifteen thousand 
feet above the level of the ocean, are crowned with per- 
petual snow. The missionaries found one serious draw- 
back on this scene of beauty : the exhaustless fertility 
and the irrigation of the plain, with the heat of the sum- 
mer sun, were the fruitful source of malaria and disease ; 
and a summer-house at Seir, in the mountains, soon be- 
came a necessity. The experience of the first mission- 



144 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

•aries was peculiarly adverse, because the workmen were 
still at work in repairing their dwelling when they ar- 
rived ; and while in the warmer room of Mr. Perkins 
grains of barley sprouted from the mud-piaster of the 
walls, in the colder room of Dr. Grant the frost stiffened 
the bedclothes by night. 

Here began their work among these " Protestants of 
Asia," the peasantry of Persia, and the " dogs" of their 
Mohammedan oppressors. There was abundant call for 
faith. However cordial the reception of the missionaries, 
the Xestorian was still a dead church. They, indeed, 
abhorred image-worship and the confessional, but clung 
tenaciously to their almost endless fasts. Of regenera- 
tion the priests knew nothing deeper than water baptism. 
They venerated the Bible, but it was locked up from 
them in the ancient Syriac. Profaneness was inter- 
woven into the texture of their language, and falsehood 
they defended as unavoidable. The Sabbath was largely 
a day of business. Their wines, plentiful as water, made 
intemperance equally abundant. Few but the priests 
could read or write, and of the women only the sister of 
the Patriarch. 

Indeed, not the least of the missionary trials was the 
low condition of woman and the family. The ordinary 
Nestorian house is built of clay, and contains one room, 
tenanted often by four or five generations, and commonly 
not less than ten or fifteen individuals. In the moun- 
tains the cattle also occupy the sides of the room, and 
face the family ; but on the plain, the stable and the 
store-room have separate entrances. A tannoor, or 
oven, in the centre, heated once a day with dried ma- 
nure, does the cooking and the warming, and a hole in 
the flat roof is both chimney and window. The walls 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 145 

are black and shiny with smoke, and every article within 
smells of creusote. A bed is a thin mattress, quilt, and 
pillow, spread on the ground, by night filled with a naked 
occupant, and piled away by day. Of course privacy 
was impracticable, and cleanliness out of the question. 
The missionary ladies were shocked into tears by the 
inevitable contact with vermin, alike when they visited 
the Nestorian houses, or were visited at their own 
homes. When a girl came to the boarding-school, the 
first necessity was a thorough cleaning from head to 
foot. 

This only illustrates the degradation of the women. 
They were betrothed at twelve, and often married while 
children of fourteen. They spent the day in out-door 
labor, taking their infants with them ; at night they pre- 
pared the husband's supper, and ate when he was done. 
The wife was never consulted by the husband, and the 
education of a woman was deemed an impropriety. The 
sex were as profane as the men. Though down-trodden 
and oppressed, yet often, perhaps for that very reason, 
they rose to imperiousness and fury. 

Printed books there were none ; though there were 
parchment manuscripts of the Bible six or seven hundred 
years old. Indeed, the modern tongue had never been 
reduced to written form. The first formal work of Mr. 
Perkins was to prepare a series of school cards in the 
Nestorian tongue, the printing-press being still five years 
distant. The school opened with twenty-four scholars, 
including three deacons and a priest. Sabbath worship 
and social meetings were commenced, in which the gbod 
bishop Mar Yohannan, as well as priests Abraham and 
Yohannan, gave assistance ; and in two months the great 
work of trA-nslatinor the Bible was beg;un. 



146 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

Meanwhile Dr. Grant, who had left a large medical 
practice in Utica, N. Y., entered on a still larger one at 
Oroomiah. He was so thronged as to have time for little 
else. Grateful patients literally bathed his feet with 
their tears, and haughty Mohammedan Moollahs stooped 
to kiss the border of the Christian's garment. In addi- 
tion to his indispensable services in saving the lives of 
the missionary families, it is unquestionable that the pro- 
tection and early popularity of the mission were chiefly 
due to his influence. Amid all this occupation he studied 
Turkish and Syriac, and opened a Sabbath school with 
fifty scholars. Mrs. Grant had the health and freedom 
from family cares to become the pioneer of female educa- 
tion in Persia. She was herself highly educated. At 
twenty-one she spoke the French, and read the Latin and 
the Greek. And now she speedily learned to write the 
ancient Syriac, speak the Turkish, and read and write 
the modern Syriac. While she prepared maps, and 
taught bishops and priests in her own house, she indus- 
triously sought the acquaintance of the women, both 
Christian and Mohammedan. Finding it impossible so 
far to surmount prejudice at once as to open a school for 
her sex, she began by teaching her domestics ; and, after 
two years and a half, she succeeded in commencing, with 
four girls in a barn, what was the germ of the female 
seminary of Oroomiah. 

In the midst of all outside workings and informal con- 
versations, we catch a glimpse of the inner activity of 
the mission in a letter of Mrs. Grant : " On Monday and 
Saturday evenings there is a Bible class, when the mis- 
sionaries and native helpers study together the sacred 
word. On Tuesday evenings the former meet for con- 
sultation. There are reunions twice a week, when the 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 147 

natives present their English sentences for criticism to 
the missionaries, and in turn criticise the Syriac of their 
teachers. Thursday evening is devoted to a prayer 
meeting. On the Sabbath, after two religious services 
in Syriac and one in English, the mission families meet 
with the Nestorians to sing the Lord's songs in that 
strange land which is yet their chosen home." The in- 
structions and the aim of the missionaries were not 
directed to the formation of separate churches, but to the 
infusion of spiritual life into a church which had the body 
of Christianity, but not the soul. 

The work at first was slow, as usual. The first eight 
years saw hardly more than half that number of clear 
conversions. There was much suffering, too, from sick- 
ness. For three years, say they, " on an average, one 
half our number have been sick half the time." Dr. 
Grant perhaps saved the life of the mission. But they 
labored on cheerfully. One of the royal princes visited 
and commended their school. The Mohammedan popu- 
lation were almost jealous of the privileges of the Nes- 
torians ; and the latter entered enthusiastically into the 
educational plans of the missionaries. The Patriarch, 
for a considerable time, was favorably disposed ; and the 
British embassy at Tabriz were throughout their fast 
friends. In three years the village schools had increased 
to twelve, and afterward to sixty. The mission was 
speedily joined by Messrs. Holladay, Stocking, Wright, 
Breath, and their wives, and for a time by Mr. and Mrs. 
Jones and Mr. Merrick, the latter seeking ineffectually 
to reach the Mohammedans. 

While Mr. Perkins and his associates prosecuted their 
w r ork upon the plain, the heart of the indomitable and 
fearless Dr. Grant warmed for the mountain Nestorians. 



148 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

His frail health required the mountain air. And at this 
juncture his beloved wife was called away, at the early 
age of twenty-five, exclaiming, " Christ is my all — my 
all : if I have one desire to live, it is for you and your 
[Xestorian] people ; for myself, I am ready to depart." 
During her sickness a venerable bishop lingered several 
days and nights round the mission premises ; Meerza, 
her Mohammedan pupil, " could not sleep," and wept 
like a child with apprehension ; the Xestorians in church 
kneeled down together, and prayed that she- might be 
spared ; and as she serenely and happily passed away, 
those of them that gathered round her were overcome, 
and wept aloud. The bishops said, 4i "We will bury her 
in the church, where none but holy men are buried, and 
we will dig the grave with our own hands." Precious 
as was her influence, more precious was her departure ; 
and it has been well suggested whether that scene and 
blessed memory were not a powerful preparation for the 
subsequent revivals. 

Sadly cut loose from his moorings, Dr. Grant now 
carried out his long cherished desire. Five successive 
journeys did he take to the mountains, then beginning to 
be agitated by the Koordish disturbances which culmi- 
nated in havoc. '*To the borders of their country,"' said 
the Pacha of Mosul, ' ; my head for yours ; carry gold on 
it, and fear not ; but I warn you I cannot protect you a 
step further." But Grant was a stranger to fear. His 
simple trust in God's guidance and care bore him on. 
Upon his journeys he at one time almost perishes in a 
snow storm. Xow he glides from his mule as it stum- 
bles and totters on the brink of a precipice. Xow he 
boldly faces a robber band of Koords ; now crawls the 
ravines round their villages, hearing the watch-cry close 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 149 

at hand. In the loneliest part of the way he firmly 
refuses the demand of his guides for more pay under 
penalty of abandonment. Again he is summoned to 
visit the fierce emir of Hakkarah, — the destroyer of Dr. 
Schultz, — and is ushered through two iron doors into 
his room, hung with swords, pistols, guns, and daggers. 
Of two missionaries, — Mitchell and Hinsdale, — whom 
his own earnest appeals had summoned to his help from 
America, and for whose coming he hastened to prepare, 
he had the sad news that the first died suddenly on the 
way, near Mosul ; and to the other, who had just visited 
the mountains, he was summoned only to see him die. 
But he pressed on. He won the hearts of the mountain 
Nestorians, and the protection of Koordish chieftains. 
With his saddle-bags full of medicines, and his gold se- 
cured in a roll of blister salve, he pushed his way till he 
had founded his school of thirty pupils in the village of 
Ashitha, with a title deed, confirmed by the emir and the 
Patriarch, " unto Hekim Grant," " even unto the resur- 
rection." When at last the troubled elements burst out 
into a flame of war, or rather of slaughter, every- 
thing for a time .was swept away, though last of all 
was the mission village. Ten thousand mountaineers 
perished in every form of cruelty, the Koords even 
amusing themselves by tossing Nestoriau infants into the 
air, and catching them on their daggers as they fell. 
Dr. Grant survived the ruin but a year or two, and 
passed away, leaving a name and an influence more 
precious than rubies. That mountain mission was 
crushed for the next ten years. But the horror of 
those massacres recoiled on the Koords. The Porte 
was compelled to break them down. Bader Khan Bey, 
their leader, was sent into exile, and it was Mr. Perkins's 



150 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

lot to encounter, on the steamer at Tabriz, twenty of his 
connections, in chains, on their way to join their fallen 
chief. The Nestorians, driven from the mountains, were 
brought into tenderer and more effective contact with the 
gospel. 

The harvest-time came at length after the lapse of ten 
years. The Nestorians were steadily poring over the 
Word of God. The missionaries were laboring with 
them privately and publicly, and after a time, preaching 
by invitation in their churches. The priests and bishops 
were changing their services in an unknown tongue for 
living interpretations and exhortations. Mrs. Grant's 
death had disclosed new visions of the power of religion, 
and touched a tenderer chord. A few individuals — 
priests John and Abraham among them — seemed to feel 
its power. The visit of Mar Yohannan to America, of 
his own sole determination, exerted a marked effect on 
his views and character. In that journey Mr. Perkins 
placed his heart, and at length his hand, on young Stod- 
dard, with his restless intellect and his burning piety, — 
" Henry Martyn, Junior," as B. B. Edwards loved to 
call him ; and Miss Fidelia Fiske, with all her culture, 
character, and womanly power, in response to the same 
call, detached herself from the instructor's chair at South 
Hadley to raise her degraded sex in Persia. The two 
seminaries — for boys and for girls — were now in these 
admirable hands, and by being both converted into 
boarding-schools, had at length brought the pupils away 
from the contamination around, and under a direct re- 
ligious control. 

It had been a hard struggle to do this for the girls. 
Some of the missionaries had thought it impracticable. 
It had been Mrs. Grant's purpose, and now became Miss 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 151 

Fiske's. At length Mar Yohannan said, " You get 
ready, and I will find girls." When the time came — it 
was the autumn of 1844 — he appeared, leading one in 
each hand, Selly and Khanee ; and as Miss Fiske shed 
tears of joy, he said to her, " Now you begin Mount 
Holyoke in Persia." It took all winter to get six girls, 
but the number fioally rose to twenty-five, and the cause 
was won for all time. Mount Holyoke, with its mighty 
religious influences, had, indeed, begun in Persia. Thir- 
teen years later Miss Fiske sat down to the communion 
table with ninety-two of her sisters, whom she had per- 
sonally aod privately led in prayer to Christ. 

It was in the summer and autumn of 1845 that a 
deeper attentiveness than usual had settled down on the 
village of Geog Tapa. In December an uncommon 
seriousness in the boys' school caught the attention of 
the clear-headed Mr. Stocking. Early in January, on 
the day of special prayer in the mission, two girls, after 
morning prayers, asked Miss Fiske for a day to seek the 
Saviour. Nicholas, the mission servant at Seir, had been 
hopefully renewed. This seemed all. But of a sudden, 
on the 19th of the month, the Spirit came down on both 
schools, in their entire separation, with singular, power. 
Mr. Stoddard called a moment at the door to tell Miss 
Fiske that four or five of the boys were seeking Christ, 
and found her just dealing with five girls, also bowed 
down with the deep sense of their sins. For several 
days the two institutions, mostly ignorant of each other's 
state, presented scenes that never will be forgotteu by 
those that were there. For days and weeks all minds, 
and hearts, and mouths were full of one great theme. 
On the third evening the boys kept Mr. Stoddard up till 
midnight to converse with them, and were waiting for 
o 



152 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

him when he awoke early in the morning. Midnight 
again found the teachers of both schools engaged in the 
same blessed work. In Miss Fiske's school, the first 
evening, every available place was occupied for prayer ; 
and she was often waked in the morning by pupils stand- 
ing at her bedside with some inquiry about the way of 
life. Two girls prayed all night for their two brothers 
in the other school. And for a long time the very breath 
of the school, at home or in the daily walks, seemed to 
be laden with prayer. Indeed, it became necessary for 
the teachers firmly to hold their pupils to their wonted 
habits of relaxation, food, and sleep. "Wise measures 
were adopted to keep down all mere animal and social 
excitement. When Mr. Stocking found some twenty 
boys on the floor together, groaning and crying, for 
mercy, he told them of the Nazloo River, shallow and 
babbling over the hill-side rocks, but still and deep on 
the plain, and sent them to their closets. In both schools 
the pupils were kept much by themselves. A deep and 
powerful work went on for several weeks, the fruit of 
which was the hopeful conversion of twenty girls and 
thirty young men, being three fourths of their number. 

The w r ork spread outside, for, after a little, visitors 
came. Ten or fifteen women would come and spend the 
night at Miss Fiske's. She would converse with them 
till midnight, and then from her room she could often 
hear their voice in prayer till morning. Deacon Guergis, 
"the vilest of the Nestorians," came to visit his daughter 
in full Koordish dress, with gun on his shoulder, and 
dagger at his side. As the girls wept and prayed, he 
ridiculed. When his daughter prayed for him, he raised 
his hand to strike her ; but the Lord held it back. When 
he was personally addressed by Miss Fiske, he laughed, 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 153 

and laughed again. All Saturday, and till Sunday noon, 
he opposed and scoffed. One solemn, final appeal struck 
him like a flash of lightning. He burst into tears, and 
hastened by himself to pray. When he. re-appeared, the 
gun and dagger were gone, and the big tear-drops were 
falling as he stole into meeting, and bowed his head on 
the desk. " My sins," said he that night, " my sins are 
higher than the Jeloo Mountains ; " and he bowed to the 
floor. " Sir, I could not carry this load of sin if there 
were no hell." Next morning all he could say was, 
" My great sins, and my great Saviour." Miss Fiske 
was wholly incredulous, and warned Mr. Stoddard not to 
be imposed upon. But before noon Guergis was on his 
way to his mountain home. He was next heard of sur- 
rounded by his friends, telling them of " sin and of 
Christ." For ten years that was his one work. He 
traveled the mountains in his huge turban, striped jacket, 
and red trousers, with Testament and hymn-book in his 
knapsack, telling men of sin and of Christ. In the 
rocky passes, and as he rested by the fountain-side, his 
stentorian voice could be heard singing, "Rock of Ages," 
and " There is a fountain filled with blood." In the 
wanderings of his last sickness, he would rouse up, and 
say, " That blessed Mr. Stocking ! O, it was free 
grace — free grace ! " These were almost the last words 
from his lips, and the last voice that fell on his ear 
was that of his praying daughter. The good walking- 
stick that accompanied him on the mountains lies in 
the mission-house at Boston. 

This good work extended into the villages, and its 
influence was felt even in the mountains ; not alone by 
reaction on the families of the pupils, but by their active 
efforts in term-time and vacations, and other independent 



1-54 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

labors. In Geog Tapa there were supposed to be fifty 
conversions. Profane and intemperate ecclesiastics were 
reformed. Degraded women were lifted up. Laboring 
men, with spades, in their hands, spoke of Christ, and the 
voice of prayer and praise was heard in vineyards and 
fields. " The general aspect of the village," writes Miss 
Fiske, " is much changed." The other villages shared 
in the work. It was remarked that this revival came 
about in the ordinary use of means ; that it bore all the 
marks of revivals in America ; that those were first- 
reached who had been most thoroughly taught ; and that 
it wrought a revolution in the character of the schools, 
and a great change in some of the villages. 

Again, in 1849, came a still more wonderful refresh- 
ing, beginning again simultaneously in the schools, and 
spreading forth without. The first of January was the 
day of fasting and prayer. On that day a Bible was 
found in a girl's room, open at the fifty-first psalm, its 
large page sprinkled so thick with tears that there was 
not room for a finger-point between. But no general 
awakening appeared ; till one night, when the bell rung for 
retiring, no one moved. One pupil then came, and said 
that many were distressed for their sins, and it was a 
time to pray, and not to sleep. The girls had assembled 
in one room, where the pious were in earnest prayer, 
and nearly all the impenitent were melted down with a 
sense of sin. It seemed as though eternity had opened 
upon them, and wreck and ruin were before them. " O 
Lord," began one prayer, " throw us a rope, for we are 
on a single plank, on the open sea, and wave after wave 
is dashing over us." And so they prayed on till their 
teachers — for Miss Rice had now joined Miss Fiske — 
sent them, after midnight, to their rest. Before long 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 155 

every girl in the seminary over twelve years of age was 
hopefully converted, and the delightful scenes that filled 
that household seemed to the teachers a foretaste of 
heaven. In the other seminary the revival began a little 
earlier. Unexpectedly, one afternoon, the voice of sepa- 
rate prayer was heard from a dozen chambers, and a 
group of boys had assembled in one of the rooms to pray 
together. A few of the older students spent all night in 
prayer, and next day the whole school was alive with, 
the presence of the Holy Spirit. On one occasion, a few 
days later, every room and every closet in the building 
was occupied for prayer, and boys were praying in the 
open yard, kneeling upon mats in the snow. There were 
one or two days when study was impracticable, and. the 
school exercises had to be suspended. In attempting to 
sing, "Alas, and did my Saviour bleed," they broke 
down with weeping. As they came to the light, both 
pupils and teachers became intensely interested in the 
little village of Seir around them, and were unremitting 
in their labors. Two pupils went out from the girls' 
school to visit the families. And the Holy Spirit de- 
scended also on the village with singular power. Old 
and young, men and women, were brought to the cross. 
" God has visited every house," wrote the girls Sanum 
and Moressa to Constantinople. As they approached 
one dwelling, they heard an old man of ninety praying in 
the stable, and his wife in the house. The old man wel- 
comed them with tears, and prayed with them u as 
though Christ stood right before him." Of nineteen 
houses in the village, every one had a family altar. 

The larger village of Geog Tapa was again blessed. 
The flame first kindled in the heart of Deacon John as 
he came back to his home, and paused at the door to 



156 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

pray that he might not enter again, as heretofore, with- 
out God's blessing. His spirit spread till he could say, 
" The Christians here are becoming like fire." Said his 
aged mother, then seventy years old, " Christ sits by me 
all day long." And Christ worked through her, too, all 
day long. The malek, or ruler of the village, had just 
beeu converted at Oroomiah. He had called at the 
school to see his daughter, and the arrow of truth struck 
him. Still he sat proudly erect in his chair as his 
daughter, and soon her young friends, prayed around 
him ; but his feelings mastered him, and he sank to the 
floor. He soon rejoiced in hope, and became an earnest 
laborer for Christ, till, seven years later, the Master 
called him home. He at once joined the praying circle 
at Geog Tapa in its daily meetings. A band of them 
visited from house to house, and were astonished to find 
even the bitter opponents of religion receiving them joy- 
fully. Men of notorious wickedness were convicted and 
converted. And when some of the seminary students in 
vacation returned to their homes in the village, still a 
new impulse came with them. One remarkable Sabbath 
is well remembered, and known as " the Pentecostal 
Sabbath," w T hen, in a large assembly, scarcely an indi- 
vidual was not affected to tears. The thrilling scenes of 
that time are beyond all power of description. " Several 
scores of souls " w T ere led to Christ. The daily prayer- 
meeting was continued for five years at least, if not till 
now, and deep changes wrought in the whole character 
of the place. 

Into Degala, too, which one of the native deacons 
called " the Sodom of the Nestorians," the influence 
extended. A youug man from that place, who was 
employed by the mission, came to the missionaries one 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 157 

day, burst into tears, and hid his face in his coat, as 
he sobbed out the request that he might go and tell his 
relatives of their lost condition. The request was 
granted, and Sayid went. His first address melted the 
congregation in the Nestorian church, and when Mar 
Yohannan and Deacon Tamo went there to preach, some 
were so wrought upon as to cry out in the midst of the 
sermon, "Brethren, what shall we do?" Strong oppo- 
sition was encountered, but there were several hopeful 
and some remarkable conversions. The villages of 
Charbash, Vazerowa^ and others shared in the blessing. 
These are but glimpses of scenes the most remarkable. 
They who would understand their power must read in 
detail the sketches of Perkins, Stocking, Stoddard, Miss 
Fiske, and others who saw and felt it all. Not only said 
good Deacon Guergis, " It is such an awakening as I 
never have seen," and the printers said, " Glory to God ; 
we never have seen any thing like it," but Miss Fiske, 
too, who had shared in many refreshings at South Had- 
ley, could write, " I never before have witnessed such 
thrilling scenes," and the calm Perkins wrote, " In depth 
of interest I never have witnessed such scenes elsewhere, 
nor expect elsewhere to behold them." And yet he had 
seen the labors of Nettleton. He adds that these scenes 
" have reminded me more of the revivals associated with 
the labors of Nettleton, in the days of my youth, than 
any others I have witnessed, so far as the difference of 
the people thus blessed, and their very diverse circum- 
stances, would admit of comparison : the same deep and 
searching conviction of sin experienced by the impeni- 
tent, his sins appearing to him, like the sands on the sea- 
shore, innumerable, and like mountains for magnitude ; 
the almost overwhelming sense of his lost conditfon by 



158 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

nature, but not less of the boundless fullness and freeness 
of salvation through a crucified Redeemer ; the grasping 
of that provision with all the heart, casting the soul 
prostrate and contrite at the foot of the cross, and laying 
its sins on the head of the atoning Lamb ; and the unre- 
served surrender of soul and body into his hands, to be 
his wholly and forever." These remarks of Mr. Perkins 
w T ere applied to the whole series of revivals, of which 
there were eight or nine others within the next twelve 
years, although, perhaps, none of such remarkable power. 
A little volume, called " Nestorian Biography," gives 
some notice of the Christian lives that have been the 
fruit. 

Here we must leave those devoted men and women at 
their noble work. The Nestorian Patriarch, under Pu- 
seyite influence, at length turned bitterly against them. 
The Persian government, after twenty years of favor, 
was stirred up to jealousy, and at times endeavored to 
hamper their movements ; but the leaven had been 
working too long already. Death, too, has mowed down 
their ranks, but not their zeal. Grant, Stoddard, Stock- 
ing, Crane, Breath, Rhea, Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Wright, 
Mrs. Rhea, Mrs. Stoddard, Miss Fiske, and last of all, 
the patriarch Perkins, have passed away. Noble men 
and women have re-enforced their ranks. 

The work has gone quietly on. No figures or statis- 
tics can tell the change that has been effected. Where 
once but one woman could read, and the sex were 
doomed to ignorance, hundreds attend the annual exam- 
inations of the Female Seminary. Houses have become 
homes, the abodes of peace and joy. Woman has risen 
to dignity, and been transfigured into loveliness. Hos- 
pitality, sympathy, and beneficence have taken the place 



MISSION TO PERSIA. 159 

of oriental compliment and shallowness. Some of the 
most striking Christian lives have here been developed. 
A sure and steady influence is reaching the larger Ar- 
menian population around, and beginning to tell on the 
Mohammedan. 

But the outward landmarks are also abundant. Till 
1854 the mission had celebrated the Lord's Supper by 
themselves. Some of the converts then asked permis- 
sion to join them. From that time onward more than 
nine hundred have professed their faith in Christ, and 
each year the number steadily increases. The impracti- 
cability of all thus coming together at Oroomiah has 
led, step by step, to the celebration of the ordinance 
in every village where there are converts; and this 
silent, spontaneous withdrawal from the dead formalism 
of the old church quietly created a new organization. 
With the aid of a hundred native helpers, of whom fifty- 
eight are ordained' preachers, the gospel is dispensed 
from eighty-five centres, more than half of which are 
missionary stations or out-stations.* Last year the 
press issued half a million pages ; colporteurs scattered 
the gospel to a hundred villages ; while a thousand pupils 
w r ere in the schools. A library of true religion, litera- 
ture, and science has been given to that people in the 
heart of Asia. The mission is meditating a wider move- 
ment, and is henceforth to be no longer the Nestorian, 
but the Persian mission. 

Great as are these results, they are but the seeds of 
the future. What a growth already ! And one man — 
the noble man Perkins, who passed away while these 
pages were writing — has seen it all from the beginning. 

* These statistics are of the year 1870. See Appendix. 



160 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

Blessed privilege ! Yea, blessed are such " dead who 
die in the Lord ; for they rest from their labors, and 
their works do follow them." " Heaven itself," Mr. 
Perkins once wrote, — it was but ten years ago, — 
" while complete in its bliss, will not present that pecu- 
liar form of interest of beholding penitent Nestorians 
turning to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin 
of the world, except as viewed in the retrospect, and 
contemplated in those monuments of mercy among the 
blood-washed inhabitants of that bright world." He has 
now experienced both the joys of which he spoke. Who 
can imagine the blessedness of that goodly company, 
separated on earth, but now met in heaven, as they com- 
mune again upon the glorious scenes of Persia ! 

The mission was, in 1870, transferred to the Presby- 
terian Board of Missions. 



MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 161 



CHAPTER VIII. 
AFRICA. 

Africa has been a dark land. Excepting the extreme 
northern part, its history is unknown. Its surface was 
long wholly unexplored. Its moral condition was gloomy, 
and its prospects forbidding. Its coast line, without bays 
or peninsulas, was repellent. Malignant fevers stood 
sentinel along its rivers. Petty fighting tribes were a 
terror to the traveler, and a hundred and fifty dialects 
a bar to the missionary. Among its explorers, Horne- 
mann, Oudney, Clapperton, Overweg, Duncan, Ritchie, 
and probably Livingston, have perished, and Park, Neu- 
wied, Laing, Vogel, and Maguire have been murdered. 

And yet nature has dealt lavishly with Africa. It is 
indeed the land of great deserts and of torrid heat. The 
sands of Guinea and of Nubia will roast an egg or blister 
a negro's foot ; but the vegetable and animal life of the 
continent are marvelous in abundance, variety, and mag- 
nificence. Its species of quadrupeds are three times as 
many as those of America, and five times those of Asia. 
The most brilliant birds, the most beautiful insects, the 
hugest reptiles, and the lordliest brutes abound. Fruits, 
grain, spices, and vegetable products in immense variety, 
fill its interior. In Yoruba, says a traveler, " the hill- 
sides and banks of streams often present the appearance 
of solid walls of leaves and flowers. The grass on the 



162 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

prairies is from eight to twelve feet high, and almost im- 
pervious." And at Natal you " can find flowers every 
month in the year, and at times so thick in the open fields 
that scarce a step could be taken without treading some 
of them under foot." 

Lowest and meanest of its productions are its human 
beings. With exceptions, the races of Africa seem best 
fitted to show how nearly a man may sink to an animal. 
Nothing is too low to worship. Slavery is the most 
ancient inheritance of the country. The chief coast trade 
for ages was in slaves ; and systems of brigandage were 
organized all through the interior to supply the market. 
Polygamy of the lowest, loosest kind is universal. For 
an ox or two the husband buys his wife, and for a string 
of beads the mother has sold her child into bondage. The 
frightful prevalence of cannibalism was checked by the 
greater value of the victim for the slave market than the 
table. Everywhere woman is the animal of all work, 
and in many tribes modesty in personal exposure is 
almost unknown. The traveler beholds " young women 
dabbling in the creeks," innocent of clothing and of 
scruples. 

Yet all that was forbidding in Africa has not repelled 
the missionary, nor prevented his success. More than 
twenty different Boards have planted stations in this moral 
waste. They have found the people highly susceptible 
to religious influences, wherever rum, war, and the slave 
trade would permit those influences to act. They reckon 
some forty-seven thousand communicants at the present 
time, many of them, however, in churches that do not 
make conversion a condition of church membership. 
Many a thrilling story could be told of the labors and 
adventures of such men as Vanderkemp, Shaw, the Al- 



MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 163 

brechts, Krapf, and Moffatt. It was hard at times for 
Moffatt to know whether he was safer among the Bechu- 
anas by day, or among the eight lions that roared around 
his wagon in one night. It would be delightful to sketch 
some of the remarkable revivals that have visited the 
Methodist, Wesleyan, Moravian, Baptist, and Presby- 
terian missions, and to portray some of the Christian 
lives they have wrought, and the transformations of soci- 
ety. But we leave the tempting field for the humbler 
work of the American Board. 

The missions of the Board have been two — the Ga- 
boon mission in West Africa, near the equator, and the 
Zulu mission in South Africa, toward the Cape. They 
are interesting in quality rather than in quantity. They 
show how the gospel can struggle with the mightiest of 
obstacles, and what it can do for the most degraded of 
characters. 

The Gaboon mission need not detain us long. Its 
operations have been small, obstructed, and interrupted ; 
and the mission is now transferred to the Presbyterian 
Board. In the year 1834, John Leighton Wilson landed 
at Cape Palmas to explore the place where, in the follow- 
ing year, he landed with his wife, and was received with 
joyful acclamations by the natives. Here he erected a 
framed house, which he had brought from America, opened 
a school, and began a book in the native tongue. Other 
missionaries followed — Messrs. White, Walker, Gris- 
wold, and Alexander Wilson, with their wives. The 
mission was headed for the interior. The plan was to 
make this the entering-wedge for a great system of in- 
land operations. 

It is scarcely possible for a Christian American to 
conceive the degradation of these Guinea negroes. Their 
p 



164 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

morals were blacker than their skins. Mr. "Wilson has 
drawn a large portrait of them with such strokes as 
these : " Falsehood is universal. Chastity is an idea for 
which they have no word, and of which they can scarcely 
form a conception." And after enumerating almost every 
varied form of vice, he concludes, " It is almost impossi- 
ble to say what vice is pre-eminent." But even with 
such a people the gospel proved " the power of God." 
Twenty-three of them were in due time converted and 
added to the church. A large boarding-school was filled 
with pupils, and day schools established at seven stations. 
Mr. Wilson at one time had a native audience of six 
hundred persons ; but the embarrassments of the Board 
in 1837 first crippled the mission ; and collisions with the 
neighboring American colony from Maryland, which Mr. 
"Wilson had once saved from the fury of the natives, after 
seven years compelled a removal to the Gaboon. Here 
Satan's kingdom had not then been introduced from other 
lands — only the fetishes and native devils of Africa were 
the foes. There was no foreign government within five 
hundred miles on either side, and no trading factory along 
the shore. Nobler races, the Mpongvves and Bakeles, 
gave the missionaries a warm welcome. Scarcely was 
the work under way when, in two years, three French 
ships of war entered the river, and by brandy and fraud 
bought the territory. French guns even endangered the 
lives of the missionaries, and French influence reigned 
over the region. Still converts came dropping in — six, 
nine, twelve, eighteen in a year. Christian assemblies 
were organized. Two dialects were reduced to writing. 
More than a hundred youths gained a Christian educa- 
tion, and many thousands received light enough for sal- 
vation. Precious missionary martyrs — Mr. and Mrs. 



MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 165 

White, Mr. and Mrs. Griswold, Mr. and Mrs. Porter, 
Dr. Wilson, Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Bushnell — cheerfully 
laid down their lives. But while the relations of the 
French authorities ultimately became pleasant, they were 
the cover for introducing Romish missionaries and all the 
unutterable abominations of the foreign trade. English, 
Scotch, and Dutch trading factories, and native dram- 
shops, crowded the shore, and a medley of tribes from 
every quarter rushed thither. The foreign captain, who 
had left a white wife perhaps in New England, hired an 
ebony wife or wives " by the week," or " by the run," in 
Africa. Rum became the presiding demon of the region. 
"Satan," said a missionary, "has an agent in every 
foreigner in the river." Well might he say it, when even 
" a Scotch Presbyterian elder sent a hundred thousand 
gallons of ' liquid damnation ' to the heathen in a single 
vessel, and atoned for the whole by giving a missionary 
free passage." " It is these things that kill," wrote the 
missionary. Yea, they killed ! Year after year these 
and kindred influences corrupted the whole community 
and the native church members. In 1868, seventeen 
were excommunicated at one time, nearly all of whom 
commenced their downward course in connection with 
rum. " The missionary works at the entrauce of Ge- 
henna," writes Mr. Walker in 1869 ; and his wail is 
echoed by the deliberate utterance of a Scotch missionary 
on the western coast, " But for the British rum trade, I 
feel confident that long ere this the native membership 
of the church at Duke Town would have been reckoned 
by hundreds instead of tens." 

Never was a more formidable strangle. It was one 

CO 

long conflict, not alone or chiefly with African heathen- 
ism, but with the outlawed vices of the French, English, 



166 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

American, Dutch, and Scotch nations. But in this 
Africo-European " Gehenna," the devoted missionaries 
never gave up heart or hope. After a quarter of a cen- 
tury of buffeting with Satan in his citadel, Mr. Walker 
could say, " I desire to live to see the Gaboon mission in 
a different condition. I have faith in God. I believe 
that he will perform all his grand promises. The gospel 
is still the power of God unto salvation." The latest re- 
port of the mission announces the boys' school and the 
girls' school still in encouraging operation, six accessions 
to the church, and Sabbath congregations " as attentive 
as any in the States." Still the church is but a shadow 
of what it should have been. Mr. Walker has retired 
after his twenty-eight years of toil and conflict, and the 
mission is transferred to the Presbyterian Board, with a 
prayer for God's blessing on it. 

The Zulu mission is a brighter field, though the fiery 
ordeal has swept over it. It deals with a higher style 
of man. The Zulus, an offshoot of the Caffre stock, 
stand midway between the negro and the European type. 
The black skin and woolly hair are joined often with the 
aquiline nose, straight lip, prominent forehead, mild eye 
and lithe and muscular physique. The scautiness of 
their costume — ranging from nothing up to a greased 
cow-skin demi-skirt — is compensated for by a profusion 
of bracelets, armlets, anklets, necklaces, girdles, shoulder- 
bandstand rings for the ears, fingers, and thumbs. The 
people live in kraals, or circles of wicker-work beehive 
houses, thatched with grass, and floored with mixed ants' 
nests and cow-dung. The men take care of the cattle, 
do the tailoring for themselves and wives, lounge, drink, 
smoke, snuff, and when food is plenty, gorge like boa- 
constrictors ; while the poor woman, " with her pickaxe 



MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 167 

and basket, must serve as plow and cart, horse and 
ox," corn planter, grist-mill, and cook. In other words, 
woman was virtually a slave. They were brimful of 
superstitions, with witchcrafts and witch doctors, the 
latter wielding practically the power of life and death ; 
and they worshiped the spirits of their ancestors. In 
these huts, infested with cockroaches, and in cold weather 
filled with soot and smoke, imagine them round the cen- 
tral fire, seated on their haunches, like the dogs by their 
side, snuffing, smoking, eating, chattering, and laughing 
till bed-time, then dropping on their rush mat and block 
pillow, covered with a hide, while goats, sheep, and 
calves share their hut, — and you partly apprehend the 
case. 

Such was the inviting scene which, in 1834, six mis- 
sionaries set forth to see. They were Rev. Messrs. A. 
Grout, Champion, Lindley, Wilson, Venable, and Dr. 
Adams, with their wives. But they were not at once to be 
gratified. One company of them designed to stay at Port 
Natal, the other to strike for the interior. The latter 
party traveled a thousand miles in ox teams, only to be 
driven back by the Boers, or half-savage Dutch farmers, 
over wretched roads, thirteen hundred miles in length, — 
leaving the lifeless form of Mrs. Wilson till the resur- 
rection. Mrs. Grout, of the coast party, had died of 
consumption soon after landing in Africa. 

Meanwhile the coast party had begun their work at 
Umlazi, near Port Natal. While Messrs. Grout and 
Adams were conveying their families and goods to the 
place, Mr. Champion opened a school. His first school- 
house was the shade of a tree ; his first school-book was 
the sand, in which he traced the letters ; and of his first 
twelve scholars, some were nurses, with infants tied to 



168 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

their backs. Three other stations were occupied a few 
months later. Two schools, with fifty scholars, were 
already established, a printing press in operation, and a 
Sabbath congregation of five hundred persons gathered, 
when the storm of a war between the Dutch farmers and 
the Zulus broke upon them, and drove them away. Four 
years later a part of them returned and resumed the brok- 
en work. The printing press was working again in the 
scorched mission buildings at Umlazi, a flourishing school 
gathered, a Sabbath school of two hundred, and a con- 
gregation of five hundred ; and, 0, joy ! at last there was 
one hopeful convert. A second station at Empangeni 
numbered an audience of two or three hundred, in the 
centre of thirty-seven kraals, when, one morning, at day- 
break, a sudden attack from King Dingan, on six of the 
nearer kraals, doomed three of them to utter destruction. 
Though no harm was done to the missionary, it was an 
act of distinct hostility to the mission, and of retaliation 
for its growing influence over Dingan's subjects. 3Ir. 
Grout declined the unequal contest, and left the field. In 
view of these repeated disasters, and the unsettled state 
of the country, the Prudential Committee determined to 
abandon it. 

Here seemed the end of nine years' labor. But Provi- 
dence interposed. Xatal meanwhile passed under British 
control. The natives began to flock thither for protec- 
tion, till ten thousand of them had collected ; and it be- 
came clear that the government was about to pursue an 
honorable policy. When Mr. Grout reached Cape Town, 
on his way home, he was met by a united remonstrance 
from Christians and .ministers of every denomination, as 
well as from the American consul and the British gov- 
ernor. A public meeting was called, and a year's support 



MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 1G9 

for Mr, Grout was raise^. The post of government 
missionaries was offered to Messrs. Grout and Adams, 
and of government preacher among the Boers to Mr. 
Lindley. 

The Board recognized the plain interposition, and re- 
voked their instructions. The missionaries turned joy- 
fully to their work. After ten years of toil, a solitary 
convert at Umlazi — an old woman — sat down with Mr. 
and Mrs. Adams to the table of the Lord. Six months 
later, two men came out from heathenism and polygamy, 
and took each one wife in Christian marriage. At the 
end of the year still another. The long-deferred harvest 
was begun. 

Re-enforcements came. Six years after the mission 
was on the point of beiDg abandoned, it comprised thir- 
teen missionaries — Adams, A. Grout, Lindley, Bryant, 
L. Grout, McKinney, Rood, Marsh, Ireland, Abraham, 
Tyler, Wilder, Dohne — with their wives, laboring hope- 
fully at twelve stations. Nine churches had been organ- 
ized, containing one hundred and twenty-three members, 
thirty-six of whom were received in one year. But 
trials were not over. The young school of teachers and 
preachers that was started in 1853 with nine scholars, 
and in four years increased to twenty-five, was broken up 
by the failure of Mr. Rood's health. In the great dis- 
cussion of polygamy in 1855 and 1856, Bishop Colenso 
defended the system. The disturbed state of the country 
for several years "hindered religious interest. The mis- 
sionaries toiled on. A Zulu Dictionary of ten thousand 
words appeared, and a Grammar of four hundred and 
thirty pages. The Scriptures were printed by gradual 
installments, beginning with the historic portions of the 
New Testament. School books of various kinds an- 



170 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

peared. Steady congregations were gained and held. 
By the end of 1863, such palpable signs as these were 
seen : two hundred and sixty-six church members in 
good standing ; one hundred and seventy-five Christian 
families, comprising five hundred baptized children ; sev- 
eral congregations of from one hundred to three hundred, 
three fourths of them respectably clad, worshiping in 
brick buildings erected chiefly by the natives ; two native 
home missionaries, supported by native converts ; schools 
maintained by the natives ; prayer meetings well sus- 
tained, and monthly concerts, with contributions aver- 
aging a dollar a year to each member ; many families 
living in brick houses, with nearly all the appliances of 
civilized life ; a hundred Yankee plows at work in the 
fields, to the inexpressible relief of poor, toiling woman. 
These things were palpable to the eye. 

The year 1865 brought a cheering revival like those 
of the home churches, and, sooner or later, of all the 
missions. Its extent was not great ; yet it brought sev- 
enty-nine converts into the churches in a single year. 
The same year witnessed the establishment of a perma- 
nent training-school for teachers, and measures for a 
boarding-school for girls. And when, next year, Mr. 
Grout saw three native preachers supported by the native 
missionary society, and a thousand dollars of native con- 
tributions ; ninety-seven members in his own church, and 
an average of four hundred in his congregation — he who 
had been driven away from three successive stations, and 
waited eleven years for his first convert — well might he 
exclaim, " If I was a fool in the eyes of some men, I 
have lived to see a hundred fold more done than I ever 
dreamed that I might effect in a long life, and have en- 
joyed a hundred fold more than I expected. Every 



MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 171 

promise of God has been abundantly fulfilled to me." It 
was written in the very year when Bishop Colenso said, 
" the plan of salvation was so difficult, he never tried to 
explain it to the Zulus." 

The good work has gone steadily, if not rapidly, for- 
ward. The annual report for 1870 shows nineteen sta- 
tions and out-stations, with twelve churches, containing 
about five hundred members, twenty-eight of whom were 
received within the year. The little band of mission- 
aries, — - apostolic in number, — with their fifteen female 
assistant missionaries, are at length re-enforced by thirteen 
native preachers and two native pastors — one of them 
rejoicing in the honored name of Rufus Anderson, — 
eighteen teachers and four catechists, eighteen common 
schools, a female seminary with twenty-six bright-eyed, 
quick-witted girls ; the training-school, with its thirty- 
five young men, — its British aid of one thousand dollars 
a year, and its expanding plans, — give cheering promise 
that the harvest-time is not far away. Meanwhile, where 
once were only kraals, the visitor would now see more 
than two hundred upright houses, a dozen of them built 
of brick ; children engaged with their books, or perhaps 
praying in the bush ; readers of the Pilgrim's Progress 
and the Dairyman's Daughter, translated by a Zulu girl ; 
students of Barnes's Notes ; congregations that can sing, 
" Nearer, my God, to Thee ; " school girls that will 
repeat a psalm or hymn without mistake, after a single 
hearing — one of whom learned the first seven psalms in 
half an hour. He would hear a dying mother say, " I 
know I am dying ; but why should I fear to go home ? 
I love my Saviour. I love my God. I have no fear — 
all is so bright." He might see a man in the prime of 
life who has abandoned Zulu wealth and power, and 



172 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

resisted the dissuasions and almost compulsions of his 
friends to travel with the gospel message to many hun- 
dreds of his fellows, ever hearing those words, " Son of man, 
I have set thee for a watchman." He could see, in the day- 
schools at Mapumulo, four grandchildren of a man who 
once refused to send his own children, lest they should 
become Christians, while one of those very sons now 
takes part in the prayer meeting. In those African 
schools you might see a girl with eight spear-marks on 
her person ; another who was untied from the back of 
her dead mother in the waters ; another who fled from 
the den of the polygamist, to which she had been sold 
for two extra cows ; a young man whose tribe-mark is 
an amputated finger ; and another whose relatives once 
burned his clothes, and intoxicated him by force, to keep 
him away. " These are they which came out of great 
tribulation." 

Or you might take a walk with a lady missionary to 
the homes of the Christian Zulus around her. Passing 
the white cottage flanked by rows of orange trees, where 
the wife is away, — though the husband, dressed in his 
straw hat, blue shirt, and black trousers, invites you in, — 
you enter the next house, where the mother, in calico 
dress, sits sewing with the baby by her, and a boy and 
girl sit by the table, one with a book, the other with the 
needle, while the room contains chairs, book-shelves, and 
a cupboard, with cups and saucers, and the bed-room 
adjoining shows a bed with its blankets, and pillows, and 
patch-work quilt. The next, a brown cottage, shows a 
little girl in front teaching the baby to walk. In the 
parlor a young woman is cutting and making a dress, the 
father reading aloud, while the wife sits near at w r ork, and 
some children are playing with a doll. And when you 



MISSIONS IN AFRICA. 173 

leave, the three-year-old " Jeremiah " will take up the 
song he heard on Saturday in school. " Beyond, we 
came to a red-brick house, a flower-garden in front, cur- 
tained windows, and matted floor. In the parlor stood a 
table, with ink, pens, paper, and books on it, and a clock 
ticked away merrily on the shelf. The table was set for 
tea in the back room, with cloth, plates, cups and saucers, 
spoons and forks, bread, butter, and sugar, while hot 
coffee was ready, of which the cup we drank was very 
acceptable. I asked the father what he did evenings. 
4 O,' he said, ' we light the candle, my wife sews, and 
I teach the children their lessons for school the next day. 
When this is done, we pray, sing a hymn, I read a chap- 
ter, and we go to bed.' " 

Reader, these scenes are in Zulu land, these people are 
jet black, and the kraal is still in sight of their homes. 
And one of the noble men who began that blessed change, 
Alden Grout, after thirty-five years of undaunted toil and 
trial, still lives to thank God for it all ; and through 
eternity will he rejoice in the work God gave him to do. 



AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 187 

several years, it became the one absorbing and distract- 
ing theme of the Cherokees. It threw the Choctaws at 
once into great trouble, despondency, and violent dissen- 
sions, in which the missionaries stood between two fires : 
the pagan portion of the nation falsely charging them 
with favoring the removal, and the United States author- 
ities regarding and treating them with suspicion and 
severity. One is ashamed to write that in September, 
1829, United States Commissioners assembled the Choc- 
taws in council, and proposed terms of removal ; that a 
committee of sixty .Choctaws, representing the three dis- 
tricts of the nation, reported almost unanimously against 
it, and the whole body of Choctaws approved the report, 
and a large proportion of them went home ; that, on the 
next day, the Commissioners assembled the remainder, 
and by threats of withdrawing the agent, making them 
pay the expenses of the treaty, leaving them to the 
mercy of state laws, and by bribery of certain chiefs and 
their relatives, forced the treaty through, to the "general 
indignation " of the great majority of the w r arriors and 
captains ; and that, meanwhile, the presence of the mis- 
sionaries at the treaty-ground was forbidden by the 
United States Commissioners in writing, although the 
presence of all other persons was allowed. But these 
are dark facts of history. The Cherokees resisted longer. 
They felt, like the Choctaws, that it was only the begin- 
ning of the end ; and the few that consented earlier did 
it in the firm conviction that all would be compelled to 
go, and that the last would be the worst off. But the 
vise did not finally hold the victim till the year 1836. 
In the July previous, the United States sent as Commis- 
sioner, to persuade the Cherokees, the Rev. J. F. Scher- 
merhorn. But in vain. In October, another attempt,* 
R 



188 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

again in vain. The Cherokee delegates then departed to 
"Washington to confer directly with the Secretary of War. 
In their absence, within a month, this gospel messenger 
called another council of a fraction and faction of the 
tribe, got up another delegation and another treaty, which 
was soon ratified by the President and Senate ; although 
the chief, John Ross, and fifteen thousand of the nation 
— a vast majority — protested against the treaty in every 
stage of its progress, as unsatisfactory, contrary to the 
will of the nation, and made with persons wholly un- 
authorized. The treaty was concluded, it is alleged, 
with three chiefs and about six hundred men, women, and 
children.* The chiefs were afterward put to death by 
the nation for their treachery, though against the efforts 
of John Ross. But the Rev. J. F. Schermerhorn's treaty 
stood ; and General Winfield Scott, and two thousand 
troops, were afterward detailed to execute its provisions. 
Bat the State of Georgia did not wait for the treaty. 
Three years before it divided up the whole Cherokee 
country into sections of one hundred and forty acres each, 
sold them by lottery to its citizens, and extended its laws 
and courts over the territory. Men with white skins 
and black hearts rushed in. They carried gambling, in- 
temperance, lewdness, and outrage among a people broken 
and despondent. The Cherokee laws against intemper- 
ance and liquor-selling were overborne by the laws of 
Georgia, as were those of the Choctaws by the laws of 
Mississippi. All was demoralization. There was even 
a reaction against the missions, and a direct loss of influ- 
ence. The missionaries were viewed as citizens of the 
nation that oppressed them, and as representing its re- 

* New Am. Cyc. But Rev. W. Willey writes, " Sixty men 
and no chiefs." 



AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 189 

ligion ; and, though the missionaries were actually driven 
out of Georgia into Arkansas, they were suspected as 
u treaty men." 

A singular experience was that of the two mission- 
aries Butler and Worcester, in 1831. In January they 
and their companions received notification of a law of 
Georgia, recently enacted, requiring all white men re- 
siding on the Cherokee lands to take the oath of allegiance 
to the State of Georgia, and get a license from the Gov- 
ernor, under penalty, if found there after the 1st of 
March, of penitentiary imprisonment at hard labor not 
less than four years. Well knowing this to be in open 
conflict with their rights under the constitution, laws, and 
treaties of the general government, they remained at 
their post. On the 12th of March appeared a detachment 
of the " Georgia Guard," headed by a colonel. Three 
of the missionaries were arrested, and taken to the head- 
quarters of the guard. On being brought, by writ of 
habeas corpus, before a County court, the Judge released 
them on the ground that, as missionaries patronized by 
the general government, they were in some sense its 
agents, and not within the range of the law. Forthwith 
a correspondence ensued between the Governor of Georgia 
and the President, in which the latter declared that he 
did not consider them in any sense agents of the govern- 
ment ; and the Postmaster-General, to clear the track, 
made haste to remove Mr. Worcester from the office of 
postmaster. The Governor now sent warning letters, and 
the agent of Georgia gave them two days to leave. 
Messrs. Worcester and Butler frankly, but respectfully, 
declined. And now appeared once more the Georgia 
Guard and a Georgia colonel. Messrs. Butler and 
Worcester were arrested, with a Methodist missionary 






190 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

(Mr. Trott), and a Cherokee Darned Proctor. The latter 
was for two nights chained by the neck to the wall of 
the house, and by the ankle to Mr. Trott, and inarched 
two days chained by the neck to a wagon ; and Dr. But- 
ler was marched also with a chain about his neck, and 
part of the time in pitch darkness, with the chain fastened 
to the neck of a horse. Two Methodist clergymen meet- 
ing them, and expressing some sympathy and indigna- 
tion, the gallant Colonel Nelson cut a stick and gave one 
a severe blow on the head, and his subordinate, Brooks, 
dismounted the other, and drove him along the road, com- 
pelling him with the bayonet to keep the centre of the 
road, through mud and mire, pouring out upon the com- 
pany the vilest obscenities and oaths, and taunting them, 
" Fear not, little flock." After eleven days' confinement 
in a filthy log prison, aggravated by every practicable dis- 
comfort, a Georgia court (Clayton, J.) sentenced Messrs. 
Worcester and Butler to four years hard labor in the 
penitentiary. A memorial was addressed to the Presi- 
dent of the United States. But President Andrew Jack- 
son replied by Lewis Cass, the Secretary of War, that 
he had satisfied himself that the laws of Georgia rendered 
the acts of Congress " inoperative," and he had no power 
to interfere. The case was carried to the Supreme Court 
of the United States, Judge Marshall presiding ; and the 
action of the Georgia court was reversed and annulled, 
and the discharge of the prisoners ordered. The court 
of Georgia refused to obey, and Governor Lumpkin re- 
fused to interpose his executive authority to release the 
prisoners. When, therefore, a generation later, the 
Union camp-fires blazed on Mission Ridge, as Bragg, 
and Hardee, and Longstreet fled, defeated and broken, 
and when Sherman swept all Georgia from Chattanooga 



AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 191 

to Savannah, and the Georgia Governor, as he fled, vainly- 
released a hundred penitentiary criminals to fight for 
their native state, it was difficult for some now living 
not to remember the days of Nelson, and Clayton, and 
Lumpkin. 

For fifteen months and more Messrs. Butler and 
Worcester lay in the penitentiary. A memorial to the 
Chief Executive of the nation, requesting the enforcement 
of the decree for their liberation, was prepared ; but 
they were dissuaded from presenting it, the more easily, 
whether wisely or not, because it was well understood 
that the President of the United States would not enforce 
that mandate of the Sapreme Court of the nation. " Old 
Hickory " was now a willow wand. They gave notice, 
however, of a new motion in court. And now appeared 
on the scene two Georgia congressmen, rejoicing in the 
allegorical names of Schley and Coffee, to reconcile them 
to their bitter cup. These gentlemen, and other personal 
friends of the Governor, promised them that they should 
be released if the motion were not made, The mission- 
aries conferred with the Prudential Committee. In view 
of the facts that their rights had been judicially asserted, 
that the law itself was now repealed, that their own 
speedy liberation was guaranteed, that no executive en- 
forcement of the national judiciary mandate could be 
counted on, that it was too late thus to benefit the Chero- 
kee nation, and especially that this might be a case in 
which it was for Christians rather to suffer than to appeal 
to force, they withdrew the notice of a motion in court, 
and were liberated by proclamation of the Governor. 

Georgia could well afford to repeal its law and liberate 
its prisoners. It had triumphed over the national court, 
and handcuffed the national executive. It had mean- 



192 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

while put in operation such influences as intimidated and 
compelled the Cherokees to remove. Within eighteen 
months of the liberation of the missionaries, the white 
" squatters" on the Cherokee lands were more numerous 
than the Indians. And yet, under all the pressure of 
threats, and bribes, and interruption, and corruption, and 
outrages, so resolute was the opposition of the nation, 
that, as we have seen, no treaty of cession could by any 
fair means be secured. Even when Rev. J. F. Scher- 
merhorn and his " six hundred" had compounded for the 
nation with the President and Senate, the nation con- 
tinued peacefully to struggle for their rights. In the 
winter of 1836 an effort was made for a new treaty. In 
July, 1837, a delegation was chosen to visit Washington. 
They presented their cause at the opening of Congress in 
a most able and lucid manner, sustained by the signa- 
tures of almost the whole Cherokee nation, and by nu- 
merous remonstrances from citizens of the United States. 
All was vain. No essential modification of the treaty- 
could be effected. Still, they could not believe that a 
treaty which seemed to them so iniquitous and oppressive 
would be executed. And while the military were gath- 
ered round them, like the vultures round their victim, 
and while numerous fortifications were erected in the 
country, they remained quietly in their homes. Their 
grounds were planted for a larger crop than usual, when, 
on the 23d of May, 183S, the troops began to gather them 
from their cherished homes to the camps. Late in the 
season (August 19) the missionaries celebrated the Lord's 
Supper for the last time at Braiuerd, and sixteen thou- 
sand people soon bade a mournful and reluctant adieu to 
the lands of their fathers. A five months' journey was 
before them. Sick and well, old man and infant, mothers 



AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 193 

and mothers that were to be, through the winter months 
they traveled on, from six to eighteen miles a day. 
There were births and there were deaths — but the 
deaths, alas ! were two to one. They averaged thirteen 
deaths a day. They arrived at last ; but more than 
four thousand — more than one fourth of their whole 
number — in that ten months time they had left beneath 
the sod. This shocking mortality was not due to special 
ill-treatment, but inevitable in such a removal. They 
bore it, on the whole, patiently. Many of the companies 
had religious services on the way, and all showed the in- 
fluence of the missionaries in the fact that no such out- 
breaks of resistance as the government anticipated took 
place. No wonder that "Indian blood" so far boiled 
up the next year as to bring to an untimely end the three 
men who had sold their nation. Major Ridge was way- 
laid and shot. John Ridge, his son, was taken from his 
bed and cut to pieces. .Elias Boudinot was decoyed from 
his house and slain with knives and hatchets. But John 
Ross and his friends expressed the deepest regret at such 
transactions, while the United States officers scoured the 
country in vain for the murderers. Aside from this, the 
deportment of the Cherokees, under their terrible trial, 
was worthy of a Christian people. And when men say 
the Indians can not be civilized and Christianized, pos- 
terity will sadly judge which party displayed the higher 
type of Christian manhood ■ — John Ross and the Cherokee 
nation, or Andrew Jackson, Lewis Cass, the Reverend 
Commissioner Schermerhorn, Congressmen Coffee and 
Schley, Governor Lumpkin, Colonel Nelson, the Georgia 
Guard, the Georgia Legislature, and, must we add, the 
Senate of the United States in 1885. These things are 
facts of record : on record let them stand. 



194 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

But the palmy days of Indian missions were past for a 
generation. The shock of these events, and of the broad 
scheme to which it belonged, agitated and affected every 
tribe in the country. The little remnant of the Stock- 
bridges were, for years, distressed by the question of a 
new removal. The Indians of New York were kept in 
a state of bitter complaint and internal dissension. 

The remainder of this story may as well be briefly 
dispatched. It was almost a harvest of disasters, spring- 
ing from one common root. The incoming flood of white 
and Indian corruption among the Chickasaws compelled 
the abandonment of that mission in 1834. The Osages, 
in 1836, made it positively unsafe to remain. .In the 
same year the Creeks, instigated by neighboring whites 
with slanderous charges, petitioned the United States 
agent to remove the missionaries ; and they were sum- 
marily expelled, without a hearing. In the discour- 
agement of long-continued and still unsettled removal 
agitations, attended with a steady downward movement, 
the last missionary among the Stockbridges withdrew in 
1848, and left them to a native pastor, Jeremiah Slinger- 
land. The relics of the Tuscaroras in New York, with 
many of the marks and some of the vices of civilization, 
were left to themselves in 1860, having a church of a 
hundred members, and, for a time, the partial services 
of Peter P. Osunkirhine, a preacher of the Abenaqui 
tribe. In the Choctaw nation the influences of religion, 
never so thoroughly established, had been unfavorably 
affected by removal. The nation had recovered, in good 
degree, from the diminutions and the losses of removal ; 
but they had learned from their former oppressors to 
enact stringent laws in defense of slavery. Some of these 
laws directly conflicted with the liberty of teaching and 



AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 195 

preaching. On the principles that should govern, and the 
methods that should be pursued in the circumstances, an 
important diversity of sentiment arose between the mis- 
sionaries on the one side, and the Prudential Committee, 
the Board, and its patrons on the other. By reason of 
these embarrassments the mission was, in the year 1859, 
discontinued. At that time there were twelve churches, 
containing thirteen hundred and sixty-two members, of 
whom a small number, some twenty or thirty, perhaps, 
were holders of slaves. The Cherokee nation at this 
time numbered about twenty-one thousand. Our mis- 
sionary work among them had never resumed its former 
importance, the four churches numbering only about two 
hundred communicants. But the Baptists, Moravians, 
and Methodists had largely entered. Meanwhile the 
nation had become, though with serious drawbacks, a 
" nominally Christian nation." For this alleged reason, 
re-enforced, no doubt, by other grave considerations, the 
mission was, in 1860, discontinued. The Seneca mission, 
in New York, was transferred to the Presbyterian Board 
in 1870, with the tribe increased one third in number 
(from twenty-five hundred in 1818 to thirty-three hundred 
and eighty-three in 1870), with houses finished and fur- 
nished, and lands cultivated, and their persons dressed 
like their white neighbors, with the district school system 
in full operation, and a record of six or seven hundred 
hopeful conversions during the history of the mission. 

The Dakota mission, the only remaining inheritance 
of the Board among the native tribes, deserves a separate 
description. 



THE DAKOTAS. 197 



CHAPTER X. 

MISSIONS AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
THE DAKOTAS. 

In the year 1835 the Sioux, or more properly Dakota, 
Indians were one of the most powerful tribes on the 
continent, numbering, probably, from forty-five to fifty 
thousand. Their vast hunting-grounds extended from 
the forty-third to the forty-ninth degree of latitude, and 
from the Mississippi to the Black Hills west of the Mis- 
souri. The great State of Minnesota now occupies their 
eastern borders ; and only a few years have passed since 
they were the sole occupants of Winona, Red Wing, and 
the region about St. Paul. It was within a few miles 
of one of the first missionary stations, near Fort Snelling, 
that Longfellow found a name which he has made famous. 
Minnehaha is a Dakota word, and means " Curling 
Water." A little stream plunges a precipice of sixty 
feet in a parabolic curve, and goes on its way, " curling 
along in laughing, childish glee," to join the Father of 
Waters. The name Dakota, " alliance" indicates the 
numerous bands that unite to form the tribe. 

As early as the year 1833, two adventurous young 
Christian brothers from Connecticut, Samuel W. and 
Gideon H. Pond, pushed their way to Fort Snelling, 
joined a neighboring Indian village, built a log cabin, and 
applied themselves to learn the language, while in various 



198 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

ways they made themselves useful to the natives. They 
afterward became ministers and missionaries of the 
Board, and their location seems to have determined one 
of the first two missionary stations, which was at Lake 
Harriet. Two years later the American Board took up 
the work, sending the Revs. T. S. Williamson and J. D. 
Stevens, and the farmer Alexander Huggins, with their 
wives, and two unmarried ladies, Miss Stevens and Miss 
Poage. They were soon re-euforced by Rev. S. R. Riggs 
and wife, and the Messrs. Pond, with other lady teachers, 
and in later times by the children of the earlier mis- 
sionaries. 

The rough savage whom the missionaries found was 
quite a different person from the sentimental red man of 
the romance and the poem. The only poetic thing about 
the Dakota was the kind of religious maze — or mud- 
dle — in which he lived, whereby everything was wakan, 
or mysterious. So abundantly did the takoo-ivakan, or 
the supernatural and mysterious, protrude itself through 
all nature and life, making gods innumerable, as to con- 
stitute almost a pantheism, or rather a pan-diabolism ; for 
" heaven and earth were full of demons, rankling with 
hate, and engaged in eternal strife ; " and " dread of 
future evil filled the souls " of the Dakotas. One " Great 
Spirit," omnipotent and all-pervading, so far at least as 
this tribe is concerned, is not so much an Indian belief 
as a white man's dream. Their chief gods were the. 
most grotesque conceptions. The water god, or gods, 
rather, mightiest of al!, one of whom dwelt in an iron 
den under the Falls of St. Anthony, in the form of a 
prodigious ox, with horns and tail expansible to the skies, 
the organs of power ; the thunder gods, of bird-like form, 
but terrible and hideous proportions, with double or quad- 



THE DAKOTAS. 199 

ruple-jointed wings, and of four varieties, black, yellow, 
scarlet, and blue, — the last of them globular in shape, 
without eyes or ears, and with eyebrows made of lines 
of lightning, hanging down in long, zigzag chains, — all 
dwelling in a palace, sentineled ou its four sides by a 
butterfly, a bear, a reindeer, and a beaver, enveloped in 
scarlet down ; the moving god, dwelling in a boulder and 
in the four winds, as hard-hearted as the one, and as 
capricious as the other ; the anti-natural god, in four 
varieties, one of which carries a huge drum, using as a 
drumstick a thunder god, whom he holds by the tail, 
shivering with cold in hot weather, and fanning himself, 
naked, when the mercury congeals, bold in danger, and 
terrified in safety, with good for his evil, and evil for his 
good ; and so on, in infinite inconsistency and hopeless 
confusion. 

Their religious rites and worship were worthy of the 
hideous beings they worshiped. Streaked with blue 
and red paint, the Dakota performed his holiest services. 
He offered sacrifices to his gods (and to the spirits of the 
dead) from a piece of cloth or a kettle, a portion of every 
animal killed in the chase, or that greatest luxury of the 
Indian's own palate, dog-meat, up to the self-immolation, 
wherein, somewhat like the Hindu, the Indian cuts be- 
neath the muscles of his breast, arms, and back, and 
suspends himself, by ropes passed through the incisions, 
to the top of a pole, for two or three days together, with- 
out food or drink. He has religious dances and feasts, in 
one of which the worshipers howl round a great kettle 
of boiling meat, seizing the hot meat and devouriug 
it, and then having the hot water thrown upon their legs ; 
and in another of which they dance round a pile of raw 
fish, till suddenly inspired, as they say, by the spirit of a 



200 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

cormorant, they rush upon the fishes, tear them in pieces, 
and eat them down, scales, bones, entrails, and all. 
Sorcery and jugglery go naturally together. 

The modern so-called spiritualism or spiritism of .the 
white man is an old story with the Dakota Indians. 
They practiced summoning the spirits of the dead, and 
eliciting information concerning distant relatives and 
friends, all the while according to the most approved 
white man's mode, sitting with the fire-light extinguished, 
their blankets over their heads and singing in a low 
key, till the spirit comes with his "hair-erecting" dis- 
closure. Indeed, the lofty feat wherein the Davenport 
brothers have, by twenty years' practice, acquired such 
expertness, tying and untying rope-knots in the dark, is, 
in all its important features, only the domestication of 
an ancient Dakota trick. Thus the juggler Red Bird, 
bound with ropes so tight as to break the skin, then tied, 
feet and hands together, and the whole body enveloped 
in knots and twists, with a bmTalo robe fastened over all, 
was rolled into a tent, the lights extinguished, and all 
observers withdrawn. The tent is filled with rattlings, 
drummings, and voices. When at length the torches are 
lighted, Red Bird has slipped out of the robe and out of 
his fastenings, and left all the knots still tied. 

There was little romance in Dakota life. It was hard 
on the men, and harder on the women. Bark wigwams 
were for summer, and the winter home was a conical- 
spreading tent, made of dressed buffalo-ski ns, supported by 
a framework of poles. A hole at the bottom let in the 
Indian, and a hole at the top let out the smoke. A coat- 
ing of hay on the ground, covered partly by skin mats, 
with a central space left for the fire, formed floor and 
bed. Here, in bad weather, men, women, and boys sat 



THE DAKOTAS. 201 

and smoked. The women cut the fire-wood, dug the 
tepsinna root, dressed the buffalo-skins, cultivated the 
corn-patch, and packed and often carried the tent. The 
men did the hunting, fishing, fighting, and lounging. 
Food was precarious. After a hunt, meat was abundant. 
At other times, especially on a journey, they were re- 
duced to great hardships, and went to bed " empty." 
Mr. Gideon Pond, on such an expedition, had the pleasure 
of regaling himself with otter, turtles, ground-nuts, and 
muskrats, while his copper-colored friends pronounced 
some dead fish, found on the lake shore, to be " good ; " 
and Mr. S. W. Pond once saw some " hickory chips 
which had been boiled to get nourishment." When the 
former gentleman was feasted on turtle-soup, his appetite 
was reduced by having witnessed the turtles boiled alive 
in the savory mess, and by seeing a friendly squaw, as a 
special courtesy, wipe out his dish first with grass from 
beneath the floor-mat, and secondly with the corner of 
the short gown she had worn, day and night, all winter. 

The tribe were not without their amusements, gay or 
grave. Their dances were varied enough for a more civ- 
ilized race ; six or seven in number, and crowned by the 
hideous scalp-dance. The great national game was ball, 
on which they bet as high as white men, staking not only 
their trinkets and equipments, but their horses, and some- 
times their women. They had their more quiet games, 
their " plum-stones," partly answering the purpose of 
dice, and their " moccasin" game, — not exactly a com- 
pound of " button " and " hunt the slipper." The tooting 
of a rude flute or flageolet, and the pounding of a rattling, 
one-headed drum, or tambourine, sometimes enlivened the 
smoky wigwam of a winter evening or a stormy day. 

The language was troublesome to the missionaries. 



202 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

It not only abounded in clicks, and gutturals, and unpre- 
cedented compositions, splitting a verb with a pronoun 
or a preposition, but, like other heathen languages, it 
was sadly defective for the utterance of religious ideas. 
A " good heart " was but joy ; a " bad heart," grief; and 
a "hard heart," courage. The Wakan-Tanka, or "Great 
Spirit," was but an inferior god. The language was, of 
course, unwritten, and imperfectly known. Sixteen years 
from the commencement of the mission saw the publication 
of a grammar, and a dictionary of fifteen thousand words. 

In the midst of this degradation, the mission families 
sent by the Board quietly and hopefully took up their 
abode, in 1835, at two stations, — at Lake Harriet, near 
Fort Snelling and the Falls of St. Anthony, and at 
Lacquiparle, two hundred miles further west. Their 
good work began even at Fort Snelling, where they 
organized a church, and received eight new converts, 
connected with the garrison, together with six members 
of other churches. The very first year, at Lacquiparle, 
brought in seven Dakota converts, and the second winter 
nine, the third year ten, till, in six years, forty-nine 
persons had been received. 

The missionaries found, at Lacquiparle, a fast friend 
and invaluable helper in Joseph Renville. He was the 
son of a French father and a Dakota mother. Born in 
a wigwam, and educated from his tenth year in Canada, 
he had worked his way up from a trader's "runner" 
and Indian " brave " to be an interpreter, a British cap- 
tain, and agent of John Jacob Astor's American Fur 
Company. He had now gained a commanding influence 
in the Dakota nation, — an influence which he steadily 
'used for the benefit of the Indian, the traveler, and the 
missionary. . In a journey of seven hundred miles, from 



THE DAKOTAS. 203 

Fort Snelling to the British posts, his ever open mansion 
was the one welcome resting-place. He furnished the 
missionaries a temporary home, and became at once 
their singularly sagacious aud competent interpreter of 
the Scriptures. From the first, when Mr. Williamson 
wanted a chapter to read in meeting, he went to Mr. 
Renville for a translation. A little later, in 1837, there 
was from time to time a pleasant sight to be seen in his 
reception-room. In front of a roaring fire sat Mr. Ren- 
ville at his ease, and at a table near, with books and 
writing materials, sat Messrs. Williamson, Riggs, and 
G. H. Pond. A verse was read aloud from the French 
Bible, repeated by Mr. Renville in Dakota, and written 
down by the missionaries. Thus they went through the 
gospels of Mark and John, Mr. Renville's interest in 
the missionaries was not without its reward. His In- 
dian wife was the first full-blooded Dakota convert, and 
the first that died in the faith. He himself became a 
worthy and consistent elder in the church, while two of 
his sons and one or more of his grandsons became 
preachers of the gospel. 

For some years the accessions to the church were 
mostly women. Their obstacles were less than those of 
the men. The change involved far less revolution of 
dress, habits, life, and pursuit ; drew less attention and 
less opposition. To the man, it meant complete reversal 
and reconstruction, outward as well as inward, from the 
cutting of his long hair, and the putting on of decent 
apparel, to the abandonment of polygamy ; from the 
" scalp-dance" to the scalping expedition. Meekness of 
spirit and industry of life were hard sayings to an 
Indian brave. But in the end, the word and Spirit of 
God proved equal to the work. 



204 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

From the first there were lovely spirits developed in 
those rude bodies. There was Hapanna, at Lake Caf- 
houn, long enduring, all alone, not only the social oppo- 
sition and persecution of her whole band, but from her 
own husband slanders, threats, beatings, dangerous 
wounds, and final abandonment ; yet living and dying in 
the faith, and followed to heaven by her once abusive 
husband. There was Lightning-Face, wife of Pine- 
Shooter, once ragged and dirty, and a heathen so zealous 
as to forbid her children attending the meetings, hide 
their moccasons, and leave them to go barefoot in the 
snow, yet led by the Spirit to embrace the gospel with a 
wonderfully firm and child-like faith. And when, one 
summer morning, in 1867, a flash of lightning called her 
away, none doubted she had gone to be with God, where 
her husband had gone before. There was Catharine 
Brown, willing to be put away as the second wife ; sub- 
mitting to the cutting up of her. blanket, and other simi- 
lar trials ; keeping the Sabbath, even though it entailed 
separation from her traveling company ; learning to 
read, spin, knit, and weave, aud entering into every plan 
for her people's elevation ; bringing up her children for 
the Lord, and holding fast the faith in a good old age. 
There were Christian children, like Jenny Simon, weep- 
ing over her sins, and giving her heart to Christ when 
eleven years old, and passing away at fourteen, with such 
words on her lips as these : " I love all my friends here, 
but I love Jesus more." These, and many like cases, 
proved from the first the old, but ever new, transforming 
power of the gospel. 

The life of the missionaries was not destitute of ad- 
ventures. Mr. S. W. Pond barely escaped perishing on 
a trip from Lake Harriet to Lacquiparle. Overtaken by 



THE DAKOTAS. ^ 205 

a storm, losing his way, benumbed with cold, four days 
fasting, mistrustful of the gun of his Indian guide, a 
stray horse bore him exhausted to his destination, and 
saved his life. Dr. Williamson passed one winter in 
fear of starvation, the young men who went for his 
winter's supply having been compelled to abandon all, 
and almost perished on the way. On one occasion 
Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins and Mrs. Riggs encountered an 
Ojibwa war-party with two fresh Dakota scalps, and 
just afterward the still more dangerous party of excited 
Dakotas, who laid the blame of the murder upon the 
missionaries, and killed one of their horses on the spot. 
The terrified women pursued their way on foot, under a 
burning sun, comforting their hearts with those same 
words with which the Georgia colonel had once taunted 
the Cherokee missionaries : " Fear not, little flock." 
Mr. Riggs was once a u mark for an Indian arrow," and 
again " chased by the scalping-knife in the hands of a 
drunken man." 

These were stray shots. At length came something 
of the grapple that is almost inevitable in the history of 
missions to the heathen. When the gospel began fairly 
to take hold of the Indian warriors, their chiefs and 
braves set themselves to stop it. They frightened away 
the children and broke up the schools, in some cases for 
months together. They posted guards to prevent attend- 
ance on Sabbath worship, and cut up the blankets of 
those who persisted. In more than one instance men 
who had embraced or favored the new religion died sud- 
denly and mysteriously, and there was talk of " bad medi- 
cine," — ■ the witchcraft of ancient and of modern times. 
Sometimes they used the methods of the tempter. Simon, 
one of the bravest of the braves, had become a Christian. 



206 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

For four years he nobly stood the scorn of all his asso- 
ciates, and the very hootings of the children as he went 
abroad, that Simon was a woman now. But another 
band tried friendship and flattery. They invited him to 
their dog-feasts, praised his prowess, and treated him to 
" spirit-water." He fell, repented, fell, repented again, 
and fell deeper. For some years he stood aloof. He 
was followed by prayers and persuasions. He would 
listen, promise, and slink away. At length he came and 
sat on the church doorstep, but would not enter. In 
1854 all the mission buildings at Lacquiparle, except the 
church, burned down. It was the signal for Simon's 
full and final return. He was restored to his standing, 
honored his profession, stood by the mission in the hour 
of its fiery trial, and became at length a preacher of the 
gospel. 

But not all the tempted were thus recovered; and 
strong drink was one of the chief temptations. There 
was a time, in 1849, when many of the schools were 
shut up, the attendance at religious meetings very small, 
two fifths of the church members in a state of defection, 
the mission almost disabled by the stealing of their 
property and the constant killing of their cattle, a war 
raging between the Dakotas and the Ojibwas, and the 
country flooded with stroug drink. Still it did not pre- 
vent the formation of two little churches in 1850. Then 
came the protracted excitement of treaties and cessions 
to the United States, the influx of settlers and specula- 
tors in village sites and city lots. But now also came 
the happy influence of the missionary work on the desti- 
nies of Minnesota ; for the men who carried the gospel 
to the aborigines, also aided in forming the religious 
institutions of the white settlers. Four members of 



THE DAKOTAS. 207 

the mission, indeed, withdrew to engage in the home 
service. 

Meanwhile new Indian churches were organized at 
Yellow Medicine and Redwood, the one at Lacquiparle 
being transferred to Hazelwood ; and when the treaty 
excitement had passed away, the field seemed more 
hopeful than ever. In 1856 was formed the " Hazel- 
wood Republic," w T ith a written constitution, and all the 
methods of a Christian civilization. It was followed by 
a similar oue at Redwood. The chapel at Yellow Medi- 
cine had been built without cost to the Board. The little 
church at Redwood was often filled to overflowing, and 
the clear-toned bell at Hazelwood often summoned near 
a hundred worshipers. The Indians built them log, and 
frame, and — 'with government aid — brick houses, and 
began to raise grain, and other farm products, for sale. 

But now drew nigh the time that tried the faith and 
tested the work of the missionaries. Opposers had said 
that the mission was a failure, and that the Christian 
Indians were more hostile to the whites than were the 
pagans. God signally branded the falsehood. But he did 
it, as it could only be done, in scenes of fire and blood. 

There was a premonition as early as 1857. A w 7 hite 
settlement of six or eight families, on the beautiful clus- 
ter of waters called Spirit Lake, lay near the hunting 
range of the chief Scarlet End. The winter was snowy, 
and hunting unproductive. The Indians, after annoy- 
ing the settlers all around, came to an open rupture 
at Spirit Lake. They killed forty persons, and carried 
off the cattle, clothing, and provisions, and four captive 
women. One of the women was killed at the Sioux 
River because she could not cross it upon a log, and 
another afterward in the Indian camp; the third was 



208 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

purchased, and restored to her friends, by two sons of 
the early convert Rebekah, and the fourth was recovered 
by the courage and skill of three Indian messengers.- 
Great excitements and alarms attended the ineffectual 
attempts of the government to bring the offenders to 
justice. At one time Dr. Williamson saw the conical 
tents of five thousand warriors on the prairie between 
him and the camp of Major Sherman. The escape of 
Scarlet End and his assassins was not forgotten. 

Five years passed away. The United States was 
fairly locked in its great struggle with the southern 
rebellion. The heathen portion of the Dakotas, stimu- 
lated by their medicine men and war prophets, had long 
been growing bitter toward Christianity and civilization, 
and watched their opportunity. Said they 'to Mr. Potter, 
" We do not desire your instruction ; we wish you gone." 
The government and the traders had badly compromised 
Christian civilization. Of the general course of the 
government agents, and the traders to these Indians, it 
is but historic justice to say that it had been one long- 
continued imposition and outrage. The traders sold 
them goods at enormous prices, plunged them in debt, 
drugged them with spirits, and debauched their women. 
The traders and the government steadily played into 
each other's hands. It was the old fable, true at last, of 
the lion and the jackal. When a cession of lands was 
to be procured, the traders lent themselves, by fair 
means and by foul, to bring it about. They threatened 
loss of trade and of credit on the one hand, they held 
out the most delusive expectations on the other, and 
they procured the signatures of the Indians, on false 
pretenses, to contracts and vouchers not explained nor 
understood. When the money came, the government 



THE DAKOTAS. 209 

agents paid, first of all, the claims of these, traders ; and 
" most of the money due under these treaties," says one 
who had investigated, " went iuto the hands of govern- 
ment officials, traders, and other swindlers." * The gov- 
ernment had a way, too, of "breaking chiefs" when 
necessary, and, as Red Iron said to Governor Ramsay, 
of " having boys made chiefs to sign papers, and getting 
single chiefs to council at night to be -bribed to sign 
papers." In one instance four hundred thousand dollars 
were paid by the government directly to the traders on 
old indebtedness, of which one Hugh Tyler received (in 
1857) fifty-five thousand dollars for getting treaties 
through the Senate and through the chiefs. Nor were 
the stipulations about schools and implements carried 
out. " The treaties," says the writer above quoted, 
u are born of fraud, and all their stipulations curtailed 
by iniquity." f 

These general exasperations were, in 1862, embittered 
by fresh grievances. A large sum (a hundred and sixty- 
six thousand dollars) due from the government had 
remained unpaid for four years, and then less than one 
tenth was paid, and that not in cash, but in goods. In 
July five thousand Sissetons came for their money. It 
was not ready, nor even promised them. Pinched with 
hunger, and some of them dying of starvation, they 
broke into the warehouse, helped themselves, and went 
home. The agent w r as thoroughly frightened for the 
time. A little later some of the traders not only refused 
the Indians credit, but insulted them by telling them 
they " might starve or eat dirt." It was close upon the 
outbreak. 

* Heard's History of the Sioux War, p. 42. 
f lb., p. 33. 



210 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

Rumors of fighting came up from the rebellion, and 
acted like the distant smell of blood upon a wolf. The 
Indians kept hearing that their " Great Father was 
whipped." They saw that whites and half-breeds were 
invited to enlist. The able-bodied men of the white 
settlements were away to the war. Now was the oppor- 
tunity. The prudence of the old chiefs was overridden 
by the fierce counsels of the young braves, and they de- 
termined to carry desolation through all the settlements 
of Minnesota, and seize again the hunting-grounds of 
their fathers. 

The tinder was all laid when the spark fell. At 
Acton, four Indians, first roused by a mutual quarrel, 
then ejected from a house after a contention with the 
owner about liquor and a gun, and called " black devils" 
by his wife at a neighbor's, suddenly shot them and 
three other persons, and hurried away to their band with 
the story. Ali felt it to be an irretrievable step. Next 
morning, early, a hundred and fifty armed and mounted 
Indians throng round the house of Little Crow, all eager 
for a fray. The old chief sits up in bed, and great beads 
of sweat stand on his forehead. He sees the peril, for 
he had been in Washington. But the die is cast. His 
hopes and fears at home, and the excitement of the hour, 
force him on. " I am with you. Let us go to the 
agency, kill the traders, and take their goods." Deacon 
Paul and John Otherday boldly resisted in council, at 
peril of their lives, but in vain. They then rescued the 
white families, conferred with the troops, organized op- 
position, and afterward delivered the prisoners. 

Little Crow and his vultures hurried to the lower 
agency, near Redwood, the same day, surrounded the 
houses and stores in small squads, and on the 'firing of 



THE DAKOTAS. 211 

the signal gun at the store where first they were told to 
" eat dirt," they commenced an indiscriminate slaughter. 
When the horrid work was fiuished here, they scattered 
to spread it through the country. Messengers were sent 
to the upper Indians, and numerous bands engaged in 
the massacre. 

It was the evening of the 18th of August that word 
came to Hazelwood of the slaughter, forty miles away, 
and of a baud of fifty soldiers, hastening to the spot, 
driven back, with the loss of half their number, and 
all their arms. After dark strange faces were seen 
flitting round the mission, and the property began to 
disappear. Larger bands came passing by, and Simon 
and Paul hastened the mission family away. At mid- 
night a company of twenty persons might have been seen 
stealing to the woods in the rear, guided and aided by 
Indian friends. It was Mr. Riggs and his company. 
They were paddled across the Minnesota, followed by an 
Indian woman with a forgotten bag of provisions. Then 
they crawled through the ravines to the prairie. Here 
they joined the company of Mr. Williamson, who had 
lived two miles away. For a week they plodded on to- 
gether, through driving rains and long, wet swamp grass, 
exhausted, and often hungry. The children, as they 
crawled under the wagons, out of the rain, at qight, cried 
for " home ; " and the young traveling bride from New 
Jersey thought in the morning "* they might as well die 
as live." They crossed several trails of the murderers, 
and little knew that one savage party was on their own 
trail, but was misled by their friend Peter Bigfire. They 
came in sight of Fort Ridgely ; but it was sending up 
rocket-signals of distress, and they went on, by an escape 
so narrow that four men who left their company were 



212 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

killed an hour after, within hearing of the guns. They 
reached St. Paul in safety, just as the dispatch had come 
from New Jersey to recover the bodies of the young bride 
and her husband. 

On the same morning, when these left Hazelwood 
and Redwood, another company of sixty-two left Yellow 
Medicine. Honest John Otherday was their guide and 
protector. With the chances of escape, as he said, " one 
in a thousand," he brought them all safe to St. Paul ; 
" and," said he, " my heart is glad." Simon, too, the re- 
lapsed and recovered Simon, proved true as steel. Leav- 
ing his own family to shift for themselves, he brought 
Mrs. Newman and her three children to Fort Ridgely, 
he and his son drawing them in a small wagon with 
their own hands. Five weeks later, a hundred captive 
women and children were found at " Camp Release," 
also rescued by the loyal Indians, by purchase or 
persuasion. 

But long before this Little Crow and his horde had 
done their work. With torch and tomahawk they had 
swept an area of twenty thousand miles, — fifteen or 
twenty border counties. They had killed some six or 
seven hundred persons, burnt the mission premises, and 
the houses of all the Christian Indians, pressed Forts 
Ridgely and Abercrombie, and defeated a detachment of 
two hundred troops. In the horrors they committed the 
savages outdid themselves, and relapsed into fiends. 
They tortured the living, and offered every conceivable 
indignity and insult to the dead. They cut off the hands, 
feet, and heads of their victims, and tore out their hearts. 
They roasted an infant in an oven, spared not even the 
unborn, nailed children to tables and doors, threw their 
knives and tomahawks at them, and amused them- 



THE DAKOTAS. 213 

selves by shooting arrows at women and children. One 
wretch killed seven children in one wagon. Still fouler 
wrongs were inflicted on captive women, to an incredible 
extent, ended sometimes by natural death, and once at 
least by the horrid torture of impalement. These mur- 
ders and tortures of women and children were mostly the 
work of the younger braves, against the advice of their 
chief. 

For three weeks they carried all before them. The 
Christian party put forth a bold and powerful influ- 
ence to resist and divide their counsels, and formed a 
camp for self-protection. At length a body of twelve 
hundred United States troops pushed up the Minnesota 
Valley, routed the forces of Little Crow at Wood Lake, 
and finally scattered them to the west and north. 

The leaders and the most guilty escaped. Little Crow 
fled, appropriately, to Devil's Lake. In the followiug 
July, near the town of Hutchinson, an Indian was shot 
while picking berries in the woods. His height and his 
grayish hair, his teeth, double all round, his left arm 
withered, and his right arm once broken and badly set, 
marked him as Little Crow, the foremost orator- and 
hunter of the Sioux Indians. His skeleton, we believe, 
adorns the rooms of an Historical Society. 

Four or five hundred men fell into the hands of our 
troops, by capture or voluntary surrender. The govern- 
ment was now resolved to punish ; but the work was 
overdone. A military commission tried nearly four hun- 
dred men in one month, dispatching them at the rate, 
sometimes, of thirty or forty in a day, and, of course, on 
very summary grounds. Fifty were acquitted, twenty 
sentenced to imprisonment, and more than three hundred 
condemned to be hunir. President Lincoln was wiser 



214 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

than the military commission. He ordered that sentence 
of death be executed only on those who were proved 
guilty of individual murders or of rape. On that find- 
ing, thirty-eight Dakotas were hung in one day. Only 
three of them could read, and none of them had ever 
attended a mission school. Three hundred and thirty 
remained in prison at Mankato. 

And here were unfolded the strange plans and methods 
of God. The prisoners were broken and humbled. 
Eight or ten of them could read and write. Dr. Wil- 
liamson and his sister distributed among them slates, 
paper, and pencils. As the readers and writers began to 
while away the time, their example became contagious, 
and soon the whole prison was a school-house. They 
wrote to their families at Camp Snelling, and that, too, 
became a school. On a visit made in March, 1863, Mr. 
Riggs carried some four hundred letters from the camp 
to the prison, and about as many back to the camp. The 
Indians lost confidence in their gods, and listened more 
earnestly to the gospel. By a notable providence, among 
them was Robert Hopkins Chaskay, an elder in the church 
at Yellow Medicine. He had been caught hanging fool- 
ishly round the scene of havoc, with his gun, which he 
fired at an ox, and was condemned to death. By special 
efforts of the missionaries his sentence was commuted. 
He was thus in prison, to cooperate within with the mis- 
sionaries without. 

A great revival took place in the prison that winter, 
and in the spring two hundred Dakotas were added to 
the church in one day ; and when the government trans- 
ferred the prisoners by steamer to Davenport, they passed 
St. Paul in chains, indeed, but singing the fifty-first 
psalm, to the tune of Old Hundred. The good work 



THE DAKOTAS. 215 

spread at the same time, as by electric induction, into 
their families, and went on in the prison at Davenport. 
It was not till 1866 that the prisoners were released and 
joined their families, then at Niorbara in Nebraska. All 
the professors of religion, now numbering four hundred, 
chose to be gathered at first into the one '•' Pilgrim 
Church." Next year a long step forward was taken, in 
the choice of two native pastors, and the licence of two 
other native preachers of the gospel. 

And now was inaugurated in the Dakota mission, — 
although on a more limited scale, — substantially the same 
policy which was about the same time begun in Central 
Turkey, of falling back upon the home agency, — apostolic 
missionaries and native pastors. The mission had now 
reached the stage where this course was possible. No 
eye but that of God could have seen, in the great Indian 
uprising and massacre, the opening of a new missionary 
expansion. When the missionaries fled from Hazelwood, 
Miss Martha Riggs wrote in her journal, " The feeling 
came over us that our life-work had been in vain." 
The Lord seeth not as man seeth. It was but the opening 
of a new era. 

Since then the prosperity of the mission has gone 
steadily forward, except so far as it has been lately in- 
terfered with by another denomination, till, in 1871, the 
mission was able to report nine stations and out-stations, 
and eight churches, containing more than seven hundred 
members, — one hundred of them received during the 
year. Mr. Riggs is now aided in the good work by two 
sons, (the younger having gone to Fort Sully in February, 
1872), and a daughter, and Mr. Williamson by his son: 
while Joseph Renville, though dead, preaches the gospel 
by his son and his grandson. Six pastors, four licen- 



216 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 

tiates, and three teachers, all natives, are aiding the 
missionaries, and planting permanent institutions. Two 
training-schools are raising up more helpers. A Dakota 
newspaper is binding the churches together. Three 
thousand Indians are said to have embraced a civilized 
life, and the influences of civilization have more or less 
been brought to bear on ten thousand more. Some of 
them have renounced all tribal relations and allegiance, 
and all expectation of sharing in the annuities, that they 
may become citizens of the United States, own their in- 
dividual homesteads, and s'tand on the plane of full civil- 
ized manhood. The churches are doing much toward 
the support of their own institutions. There is increasing 
willingness to hear the gospel in new fields ; young men 
come from a distance to school ; and the missionaries 
and native pastors are steadily pushing forth in new ex- 
plorations, with much encouragement. A station is at 
once to be occupied at Fort Sully, three hundred miles 
beyond the Santee agency, among the "wild" Indians 
on the Upper Missouri. It is also a gratifying fact that 
the tribe, and particularly the more civilized portion, 
is steadily increasing. The government policy seems 
to have changed at last. Congress has taken up an 
apparently resolute inquiry into the colossal frauds that 
are perpetrated upon the aborigines of this country, and 
while this sketch is writing, President Grant has declared 
" his purpose to see that all the rights and interests of 
the Indians are protected." If this new policy can but 
be adhered to, and faithfully executed, and should the 
present missionary movement be suffered to go on with- 
out interference, there is reason to hope that the great 
problem of Indian Christianization, civilization, and 
preservation, will at last be effectually solved. 



APPENDIX. 



STATISTICS OF THE MISSIONS OF THE A. B. C. F.M. 

(These statistics are mostly from returns made by the missions in the year 1871.) 





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(218) 



APPENDIX. 



219 



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Totals. . . . 



220 



SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 



STATISTICS OF MISSIONS RECENTLY TRANS- 
FERRED TO THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF 
MISSIONS. 

(From the Report of Pres. Bd. for 1871.J 



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APPENDIX. 



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222 SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 



STATISTICS OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS 
CHURCHES. 

The proper missionary work of the American Board being 
virtually completed at the Sandwich Islands, a report on the 
mission there appeared for the last time in the Annual Report 
of the Board in 1870; but it maybe well to present here some 
of the statistics of that field as they were at that time, or as 
they have been reported since. There were then 14 mis- 
sionaries (i. e., ordained Americans still supported wholly or 
in part by the Board), 21 female assistant missionaries, 49 
ordained Hawaiian ministers (of whom 39 were pastors, and 
9 foreign missionaries in the Marquesas Islands and Micro- 
nesia), and 12 licensed preachers. The common schools 
(supported by government) were 224, with 5,938 pupils; 29 
day-schools, in which English was taught, had 1,458 pupils; 
and there were 15 boarding-schools, including Oahu Col- 
lege, attended by 2S0 boys and 251 girls. 

The statistics of the churches reported in June, 1871, give, 
churches, 59; members in good standing, 15,108; received by 
profession during the year, 424; whole number received by 
profession from the beginning, 49.260. At the Marquesas 
Islands the Hawaiian Board had 7 stations, 4 churches, 55 
members. 



APPENDIX. 



223 



MISSIONARIES OF THE BOARD. 



The following list presents the names of missionaries now 
in connection with the Board, in the field or expecting to 
return, giving the mission and station with which each is 
connected. 

Zulu Mission. 



Missionaries. 


Went out. 


Station. 


Rev. Daniel Lindley, .... 


1834. . 


. Inanda. 


Mrs. Lucy A. Lindley, . . . . 


1834. 




Rev. David Rood, 


1847. . 


. Umvoti. 


Mrs. Alzina V. Rood, . . . 


1847. 




Rev. William Ireland, . . . 


1848. 


. Amanzimtote 


Mrs. R. O. Ireland, . • . . 


1865. 




Rev. Hyman A. Wilder, . . 


1849. 


. Umtwalumi. 


Mrs. Abby T. Wilder, ... 


1849. 




Rev. Josiah Tyler, 


1849. 


. Esidumbini. 


Mrs. Susan W. Tyler, . . . 


1849. 




Rev. Andrew Abraham, . . 


1849. 


. Mapumulo. 


Mrs. Sarah L. Abraham, . . 


1849- 




Rev. S. B. Stone, 


1 8 so. 


. Ifafa. 


Mrs. Catharine M. Stone, . 


1850. 




Rev. William Mellen, . . . 


1851. 


. Umsunduzi. 


Mrs. Laurana W. Mellen, 


1851. 




Rev. Stephen C. Pixley, . . 


. 1855. 


. Amanzimtote. 


Mrs. Louisa Pixley, .... 


• 1855. 




Rev. Elijah Robbins, .... 


■ 1859- 


. Umzumbi. 


Mrs. Addie B. Robbins, . . 


• 1859. 




Rev. Henry M. Bridgman, . 


. i860. 


. Umzumbi. 


Mrs. Laura B. Bridgman, 


. i860. 




Mrs. Mary K. Edwards, . . 


. 1868. 


. Inanda. 


Miss Gertrude R. Hance, . . 


. 1870. 


. Umvoti. 


Miss Laura A. Day, .... 


. 1870. 


. . Inanda. 


Rev. Myron W. Pmkerton . 


. 1871. 




Mrs. Laura M. Pinkerton, . 


. 1871. 





224 



SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 



European Turkey Mission. 





Missionaries. 






Went out. 


Station. 


Rev. 


EliasRiggs.D.D., LL. D., 1832. . 


. Constantinople. 


Mrs. 


Martha J. Riggs, .... 


1832. 




Rev. 


James F. Clarke, . . 






1859. • 


. Samokov. 


Mrs. 


Isabella G. Clarke, . . 






1S59. 




Rev. 


Henry C. Haskell, . . 






1862. . 


. Eski Zagra. 


Mrs. 


Margaret B. Haskell, 






1862. 




Rev. 


Henry A. Sehauffler, 






1865. . 


. Samokov. 


Mrs. 


Clara E. Sehauffler, 






1865. 




Rev. 


Lewis Bond, Jr. . . 






IS68. . 


. Eski Zagra. 


Mrs. 


Fannie G. Bond. . . 






1 868. 




Rev. 


William E. Locke, . 






186S. . 


. Samokov. 


Mrs. 


Zoe A. M. Locke, . 






186S. 




Rev. 


Henry P. Page, . . 






1868. . 


. Samokov. 


Mrs. 


Mary A. Page, . . . 






1S68. 




Miss 


Minnie C. Beach, 






1S69. . 


. Samokov. ' 


Miss 


Esther T. Maltbie, . 






1870. . 


. Samokov. 


Mrs. 


Anna V. Mumford, . 






. 1871. . 


. ' Samokov. 




Mission to Western Tu 


RKEY. 


Rev. 


Benjamin Schneider, DD.. 1833. . 


. Broosa. 


Mrs. 


Susan M. Schneider, . . 


1858. 




Rev. 


George W. Wood, D. D 


j 


1838. . 


. Constantinople 


Mrs. 


Sarah A. H. Wood, . 




1871. 




Rev. 


Edwin E. Bliss, D. D., 




1843- • 


. Constantinople 


Mrs. 


Labella H. Bliss, . . 




1843- 




Rev. 


Justin W. Parsons, . . 




1S50. . 


. Nicomedia. 


Mrs. 


Catharine Parsons, 




iS^o 




Rev- 


Wilson A. Farnsworth, 




1852. . 


. Cesarea. 


Mrs 


Caroline E. Farnsworth 


j 


1852. 




Rev 


Andrew T Pratt, M. D. 




1852. . 


. Constantinople 


Mrs. 


Sarah F. Pratt, . . . 




1852. 




Rev 


Sanford Richardson, . 




1854- • 


. Broosa. 


Mrs. 


Rhoda M. Richardson, 




1854. 




Rev 


Ira F. Pettibone, . . . 




iS.55- • 


. Constantinople 


Rev 


Julius Y. Leonard. . . 




1857. • 


. Marsovan. 


Mrs 


Amelia A. Leonard, . 




1857- 




Rev 


Joseph K. Greene, . . 




1859. • 


. Manissa. 


Mrs 


Elizabeth A. Greene, . 




1859. 




.Hen 


rv S. West. M. D., . . 




18^9. . 


. Sivas. 


Mrs 


Lottie M. West, . . . 




1859. 




Rev 


George F. Herrick, . . 




• 1859- ■ 


. Marsovan. 


Mrs 


Helen M. Merrick, . . 




. 1859. 




Rev 


William W. Livingston, 


. 1S60. . 


. Sivas. 


Mrs 


Martha E. Livingstor 


l, 




. 1S60. * 





APPENDIX. 


225 


Missionaries. 


Went out. 


Stations. 


Rev. John F. Smith, .... 


. lS6 3 . . 


. Marsovan. 


Mrs. Lizzie Smith, 


. 1863. 




Miss Eliza Fritcher, 


. 1863. . 


. Marsovan. 


Mrs. Elizabeth Giles, .... 


. 1864. . 


. Cesarea. 


Rev. Theodore A. Baldwin, . 


. 1867. . 


. Manissa. 


Mrs. Matilda J. Baldwin, . . 


. 1867. 




Rev. Charles C. Tracy, . . . 


. 1867. . 


. Constantinople. 


Mrs. L. A. Tracy, 


. 1867. 




Rev. Lyman Bartlett, .... 


. 1867. . 


. Cesarea. 


Mrs. Cornelia C. Bartlett, . . 


. 1867. 




Miss Sarah A. Closson, . . . 


. 1867. . 


. Cesarea. 


Mr. H. O. D wight, .... 


. 1S07. . 


. Constantinople. 


Mrs. Mary A. D wight, . . 


. 1867. 




Miss Ursula C. Clarke, . . 


. 1868. . 


. Broosa. 


Miss Flavia S. Bliss, . . . 


. 1868. . 


. Marsovan. 


Rev. Milan H. Hitchcock, . 


. 1869. . 


. Constantinople. 


Mrs. Lucy A. Hitchcock, . 


. 1869. 




Rev. Edward Riggs, . . . 


. 1869. . 


. Sivas. 


Mrs. Sarah H. Riggs, . . . 


. 1869. 




Miss Ardelle M. Griswold, . 


. 1869. . 


. Cesarea. 


Rev. J. O. Barrows, .... 


. 1869. . 


. Cesarea. 


Mrs. Clara S. Barrows. . . 


. . 1869. 




Miss Julia A. Rappleye, . . 


. . 1S70. . 


. Constantinople 


Miss Julia A. Shearman, 


. 1870. . 


. Broosa. 


Miss Cornelia P. Dwight, . 


. 1871. . 


. Sivas. 


Miss Mary L. Wadsworth, M. 


D., 1871. . 


. Constantinople. 


Rev. William A. Spaulding, 


. . 1871. . 


. Nicomedia. 


Mrs. Georgia D. Spaulding, 


. . 1S71. 




Miss Laura Farnham, . . . 


. . 1871. . 


. Nicomedia. 


Miss Phoebe L. Cull, . . . 


. 1871. . 


. Manissa. 


Mission to C 


ENTRAL TU 


RKEY. 


Rev. P. O. Powers, .... 


. . lS 3 4- - 


. Antioch. 


David H. Nutting, M. D., . 


. . 1854. ■ 


. Antioch. 


Mrs. Mary E. Nutting, . . 


. . 1854. 




Rev. T. C. Trowbridge, . . 


• • 1855- 


. Marash. 


Mrs. Margaret Trowbridge. 






Mrs. J. L. Coffing, . . . . 


. . 1857. 


. Marash. 


Miss Myra A. Proctor, . . 


. . 1859. 


. Aintab. 


Rev. Giles F. Montgomery, 


. . 1863. 


. Marash. 


Mrs. Emily R. Montgomery, 


. 1863. 




Rev. L. H. Adams, .... 


. . 1865. 


. Antioch. 


Mrs. Nancy D. Adams, . . 


. . 1866. 




Rev. Henry T. Perry, . . . 


. . 1866. 


. Marash. 


Mrs. Jennie H. Perry, . . . 


. . 1866. 




Miss Mary G. Hollister, . . 


. . 1S67. 


. Aintab. 



226 



SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 



Missionaries. 

Rev. Carmi C. Thayer, 
Mrs. Mary F. Thayer, . 
Miss Hattie G. Powers, 
Rev. Henry Marden, . 
Mrs. Mary'L. Marden, 
Miss Sarah L. Wood, . 
Miss Mary S. Williams, 



Miss Maria A- West, . 
Rev. George C. Knapp, 
Mrs. Alzina M. Knapp, 
Rev. O. P. Allen, . . . 
Mrs. Caroline R. Allen, 



Rev. Crosby H. Wheeler, 
Mrs. Susan A. Wheeler, . 
Rev. Herman N. Barnum 
Mrs. Mary E. Barnum. 
Rev. Moses P. Parmelee, 
Mrs. Julia F. Parmelee. . 
Miss Hattie Seymour, . . 
Rev. Henry S. Barnum, . 
Mrs. Helen P. Barnum, . 
Rev. A. N. Andrus, . . . 
Mrs. Louisa M. Andrus, . 
Miss Charlotte E. Ely, . 
Miss M. A. C. Ely, . . . 
Miss Cyrene O. Van Duzee 
Rev. J. E. Pierce, .... 
Mrs. Lizzie A. Pierce, . . 
Rev. R. M. Cole, .... 
Mrs. Lizzie Cole, .... 
Miss Olive L. Parmelee, 
Miss Isabella C. Baker, . 
Rev. Theodore S. Pond, . 
Mrs. Julia H. Pond, . . . 
George C. Raynolds, M. D 
Mrs. Martha W. Raynolds, 
Miss Caroline E. Bush, . 
Miss Mary M. Patrick, . 
Rev. Joseph E. Scott, . . 
Mrs. Anna E. Scott, . . . 



Went out 


Stations. 


1868. . 


. Antioch. 


186S. 




186S. . 


. Antioch. 


1869. . 


. Aintab. 


1869. 




1870. . 


. Antioch. 


1S71. . 


. Marash. 


ERN TU 


RKEY. 


1852. . 


. Harpoot. 


1855. • 


. Bitlis. 


1855. 




I855- • 


. Harpoot. 


1855. 




1S57. • 


. Harpoot. 


1857- 




1858. • 


. Harpoot. 


1S63. . 


. Efzroom. 


1871. 




1867. . 


. Harpoot. 


1S67. . 


. Harpoot. 


1869. 




1868. . 


. Mardin. 


I86S. 




1868. • 


. Bitlis. 


1868. • 


. Bitlis. 


1 868. . 


. Erzroom. 


1868. . 


. Erzroom. 


1868. 




1S68. . 


. Erzroom. 


1868. 




1S6S. • 


. Mardin. 


1S68. . 


. Mardin. 


186S. . 


. Mardin. 


1 868. 




1869. . 


. Harpoot. 


1869. 




1870. . 


. Harpoot. 


1871. . 


. Erzroom. 


1871. . 


. Van. 


1871. 





APPENDIX. 



227 



Mahratta Mission 



Missionaries. 

Rev. Samuel B. Fairbank, 
Mrs. Mary B. Fairbank, . 
Rev. Allen Hazen, . . . 
Mrs. Martha R. Hazen, . 
Rev. William Wood, . . 
Mrs. Elizabeth P. Wood, 
Rev. Lemuel Bissell, . . 
Mrs. Mary E. Bissell, . . 
Rev. Charles Harding, 
Mrs. Elizabeth D. Harding 
Rev. Henry J. Bruce, . . 
Mrs. Hepzibeth P. Bruce, 
Rev. W. H. Atkinson, . . 
Mrs. Calista Atkinson, . 
Rev. S. R. Wells, .... 
Mrs. Mary L. Wells, . . 
Rev. Charles W. Park, . 
Mrs. Anna M. Park, . . . 
Rev. Richard Winsor, 
Mrs. Mary C. Winsor, . . 
Miss Harriet S. Ashley, . 



Went out. 


Station. 


1846. . 


. Sholapoor. 


1856. 




1846. 


. Bombay. 


1846. 




1847. 


• . Satara. 


1865. 




1851. 


. Ahmednuggur. 


1 85 1. 




*856- 


. Bombay. 


1869. 




1S62. 


. Rahoori. 


1862. 




1867. 


. Sholapoor. 


1867. 




1869. 


. Bhuinj. 


1869. 




1870. 


. Sholapoor. 


1870. 




1S70. 


. Ahmednuggur. 


1S70. 




1871. 


. Ahmednuggur. 



Madura Mission. 



Rev. William Tracy, D. D., 
Mrs. Emily F. Tracy. 
Mrs. Martha S. Taylor, 
Rev. John Rendall, ... 
Rev. James Herrick, ... 
Mrs. Elizabeth H. Herrick, 
Rev. John E. Chandler, 
Mrs. Charlotte H. Chandler 
Rev. Thomas S. Burnell, 
Mrs. Martha Burnell, . . 
Rev. Joseph T. Noyes, 
Mrs. Elizabeth A. Noyes, 
Rev. W. B. Capron, . . . 
Mrs. Sarah B. Capron, . 
Rev. Edward Chester, . . 
Mrs. Sophia Chester, . . 
Rev. George T. Washburn 
Mrs. Elizabeth E. Washburn 
Mrs. Charlotte E. Penfield, 
Miss Rosella A. Smith, . . 



1836. 


. Tirupuvanam. 


1844. 


. Mandapasalai. 


1845. 


. Battalagundu. 


1845. 


. Tirumangalam 


1845. 




1845. 


. Madura. 


1845- 




1848. 


. Melur. 


1848. 




1848. 


. Kambam. 


1848. 




1856. 


. Mana Madura. 


1856. 




1858. 


. Dindigul. 


1858. 




i860. 


. Pasumalai. 


i860. 




1866. 


. Tirupuvanam. 


1866. 


. . Pasumalai. 



228 



SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 



Missionaries. 


Went out. 


Station. 


Miss Martha S. Taylor, . . 


. . 1867. . 


. Mandapasalai 


Miss Sarah Pollock, .... 


. . 1867. . 


. Mandapasalai 


H. K. Palmer. M. D., . . . 


. . 1868. . 


. Madura. 


Mrs. Flora D. Palmer, . . 


. . 1868. 




Miss Mary E. Rendall, . . 


. . 1870. . 


. Battalagundu. 



Ceylon Mission. 

Rev. Levi Spaulding, D. D., . . 1819. 
Mrs. Mary C Spaulding, . . . 1819. 

Miss Eliza Agnew, I 839- 

Rev. J. C. Smith. 1842, 

Mrs. Mary S. Smith i§37- 

iS 4 5- 
1S4.V 
1S46. 
1S46. 

1847. 
1S62. 
1867. 
1S6S. 
1S6S. 



Rev. William W. Rowland, 

Mrs. Susan R. Howland, . 

Rev. Eurotas P. Hastings, . 

Mrs. Anna Hastings, . . . 

Samuel F. Green. M. D., 

Mrs. Margaret \V. Green, . 

Miss Harriet E. Townshend, 

Rev. William E. De Riemer, 

Mrs. Emily F. De Riemer, - . 

Miss Hester A. Hillis, 1S70. 



Mrs. Caroline Z. Sanders, . 
Rev. Thomas S. Smith, 



1S71. 
1871. 



— _- , .... — / _. 

Mrs. Emily M. Smith, 1S71. 



Oodooville. 

Oodooville. 
Oodoopitty. 

Tillipally. 

Manepy. 

Manepy. 

Oodoopitty. 
Batticotta. 

Batticotta. 
Batticotta. 
Oodoopitty. 



Foochow Mission. 



Rev. L. B. Peet, . . 
Mrs. H. L. Peet, . . 
Rev. C C. Baldwin, 
Mrs. Harriet F. Baldwin, 
Rev. Charles Hartwell, 
Mrs. Lucy E. Hartwell, 
Rev. Simeon F. Woodin, 
Mrs. Sarah L. Woodin, 
Miss Adelia M. Payson, 
D. W. Osgood, M. D., . 
Mrs. Helen W. Osgood, 



1839. . 


. Nantai. 


185S. 




1847. . 


. Nantai. 


1847. 




1852. . 


. Foochow 


1852. 




IS59. . 


. Foochow. 


1859. 




1868. . 


. Nantai. 


1869. . 


. Foochow. 


IS69. 





Mission to North China. 

Rev. Henry Blod^et, 18*4. . . Peking. 

Mrs. Sarah F. R.'Blodget, . . . 1854. 

Rev. C. A. Stanley, 1862. . . Tientsin. 



APPENDIX. 



229 



Missionaries. Went out. Station. 

Mrs. Ursula Stanley, * . . . . 1862. 

Rev. Lyman D. Chapin, .... 1862. . . Tungcho. 

Mrs. Clara L. Chapin, .... 1852. 

Rev. Chauncey Goodrich, . . . 1865. . . Yu-cho. 

Mrs. Abbie A. Goodrich, . . . 186$. 

Rev. John T. Gulick, 1864. . . Kalgan. 

Mrs. Emily Gulick, 1864. 

Rev. Mark Williams, 1866. . . Kalgan. 

Mrs. Isabella B. Williams, . . . 1866. 

Alfred O. Treat, M. D., . . . . 1867. . . Yti-cho. 

Phineas R. Hunt 1868. . . Peking. 

Mrs. Abigail N. Hunt, .... 1868. 

Miss M. E. Andrews, 1868. . . Tungcho. 

Miss Mary H. Porter, 1868. . . Peking. 

Rev. Thomas W. Thompson, . 1868. . . Kalgan. 

Rev. Chester Holcombe, . . . 1869, . . Peking. 

Mrs. Olive K. Holcombe, . . . 1869. 

Rev. Devello Z. Sheffield, . . . 1869. . . Tungcho. 

Mrs. Eleanor W. Sheffield, . . 1869. 

Miss Mary A. Thompson, . . . 1869. . . Peking. 

Miss Naomi Diament, 1870. . . Kalgan. 

Rev. Isaac Pierson, 1870. . . YU-cho. 

Miss Jennie E. Chapin, .... 1871. . . Tungcho. 



Japan Mission. 

Rev. D. C. Greene, 1870. 

Mrs. Mary J. Greene, 1870. 

Rev. O. H. Gulick 1870. 

Mrs. Ann E. Gulick, 1870. 

Rev. J. D. Davis, 1S71. 

Mrs. Sophia D. Davis, .... 1871. 

J. C. Berry, M. D., 1S72. 

Mrs. Maria G. Berry, 1872. 



Kobe. 
Kobe. 
Kobe. 



Micronesia. 



Rev. 

Mrs. 
Rev. 
Mrs. 
Rev. 
Mrs. 
Rev. 
Mrs. 
Rev. 
Mrs. 



Benjamin G. Snow, 
Lydia V. Snow, . . 
Albert A. Sturges, . 
Susan M. Sturges, . 
E.T. Doane, . . . 
Clara H. S. Doane, 
Hiram Bingham, Jr., 
Minerva C. Bingham 
Joel F. Whitney, . . 
Louisa M. Whitney, 



i8?i. 

1851. 
1852. 
1852. 
1854. 

1854. 
1856. 
1 8^6. 
187 1. 
1871. 



Ebon. 

Ponape. 

Ponape. 

Apaiang. 

Ebon. 



230 



SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 



North American Indians. 





Missionaries. 


Went out. 


Rev 


S. R. Riggs, 


• 1837. 


Rev 


Alfred L. Riggs, .... 


. 1870. 


Mrs 


Mary B. Riggs 


. 1S70. 


Mr. 


Wyllvs K. Morris, . . . 


. 1S70. 


Mrs 


Martha Riggs Morris, . 


. 1870. 


Rev 


Thomas L. Riggs, . . . 


. 1872. 




Mission ■ 


ro Spain. 


Rev 


Luther H. Gulick, . . . 


. 1871. 


Mrs 


Louisa L. Gulick, . . . 


. 1S71. 


Mr. 


William H. Gulick, . . . 


. 1871. 


Mrs 


Alice W. Gulick, .... 


. 1871. 



Stations. 



Missionaries Resident at the Hawaiian Islands. 

Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston, . . 
Mrs. MercvP. Whitney, . . 
Rev. Ephraim W. Clark, . 
Mrs. Helen S. Clark. 
Mrs. Maria P. Chamberlain, 
Mrs. Maria Ogden, .... 
Rev. D wight Baldwin, M. D 
Mrs. Charlotte F. Baldwin. 
Rev. Lorenzo Lyons, . . . 
Mrs. Lucretia G. Lyons. 
Rev. David B. Lyman, . . 
Mrs. Sarah B. Lyman. 
Rev. William P. Alexander, 
Mrs. Mary Ann Alexander. 
Mr . Ursula S. Emerson, . 
Mrs. Rebecca II . Hitchcock, 
Rev. Lowell Smith, D. D., 
Mrs. Abba W. Smith. 
Rev. Benjamin W. Parker, 
Mrs. Mary E. Parker. 

Rev. Titus Coan, 

Mrs. Fidelia C. Coan. 
Mrs. Lois S. Johnson, . . . 

Rev. Elias Bond, 

Mrs. Ellen M. Bond. 

Rev. J. D. Paris, 

Mrs. Mary C. Paris. 



1819. 
1819. 
1827. 


. . Honolulu. 

. Waimea, Kauai 
. . Honolulu. 


1827, 

1827. 

IS30. 


. . Honolulu. 
. Honolulu. 
. Lahaina. 


1831. 


. Waimea. 


1831. 


. Hilo. 


1831. 


. Wailuku. 


1831. 

1831. 

1832. 


. Waialua. 
. Honolulu. 
. Honolulu. 


1832. 


. Honolulu. 


1833. 


. Hilo. 


1836. 

1841. 


. Waioli. 
. Kohala. 



1841. . . South Kona. 



APPENDIX. 231 



Missionaries. Went out. Station. 

Rev. Daniel Dole, 1841. .- . Koloa. 

Mrs. Charlotte C. Dole. 

Rev. James W. Smith, M. D., . 1842. . . Koloa. 

Mrs. Melicent K. Smith. 

Rev. John F. Pogue, 1844. . . Honolulu. 

Mrs. Maria K. Pogue. 



232 



SKETCHES OF THE MISSIONS. 



A 

O 






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te the nati 
scliolars h 
e comparis 
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ecure relial 


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in 
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